How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 410

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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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Round 1 is over. Therefore, before moving to the next location, it would be advisable to return to the essence based on previous questions.

 

Let’s go through this in order. It’s regrettable that I don’t have time to draw a game tree with paper and pen.

 

1. I was dropped in a region without Espers at noon on a winter day in December. Today, unusually, snow has piled up to shin-deep. Pleroma is falling apart. Participants should rightfully have two questions.

 

(1.a) What could be the reason for the government to send a mage during a time when Pleroma is collapsing?

 

(1.b) What is the reason for coming on a day with heavy snowfall?

 

2. This continues from (1.a). There are no frenzied Pleroma or victims in this area. Why? Here we can see that what the examiner intended was not all-out war or hand-to-hand combat, but information warfare in the narrow sense.

 

This is the key. We must prevent the remaining Pleroma forces in the city from nurturing embers to attempt reconstruction. This was the test question.

 

Therefore, we participants naturally encounter the following question.

 

(2.a) What kind of activities could the Pleroma seeking reconstruction carry out in this region?

 

Here we can think that they could transport new drugs like Vitriol to key bases, establish key bases in this location, or manufacture or transport important artifacts.

 

3. This continues from (1.b). What is the biggest factor hindering investigation? I think first is the lack of investigative skills due to the brilliant achievement of Espers reaching 0% violent crime rate, second is the government, third is people’s destruction of evidence, fourth is weather. When it rains, existing footprints disappear and magical power scatters. When it snows, it hinders traffic and similarly makes it extremely difficult to find traces from before the snow, creating identification difficulties. When fog sets in, visibility is extremely reduced. Criminals can actively utilize such environmental factors to plan crimes.

 

Now that we understand why the examiner placed us in weather conditions unfavorable to investigative personnel, it’s appropriate to think from the criminal’s perspective about what benefits and disadvantages the heavy snow from point 2 brings to Pleroma.

 

(3.a) Benefits: 30cm heavy snowfall makes it easy to hide criminal acts. What can be hidden at this time is as follows: specific codes or messages written on the floor or objects, thin letters with messages, small objects—at least if these three aren’t placed in locations easily damaged by being stepped on. Additionally, footprints from before the snow.

 

(3.b) Disadvantages: People don’t wander around much on the streets. Committing crimes and disappearing into crowds becomes impossible or extremely difficult. With 30cm snowfall, cargo or sidewalk steps aren’t immediately distinguishable and walking becomes slow, creating disadvantages for escape even for those committing crimes.

 

Above, I’ve reviewed one by one the hypotheses that should be established immediately upon confirming the test environment from an examinee’s perspective. Based on this, if we narrow the range of possible actions, we can understand what methods criminals might use, so at that time I ordered the oldest newspaper from the newsstand and confirmed that the enemies had known about today’s snowfall from three days ago. Now that I’ve found the answer to Round 1, to conclude, it’s proven that combining points 2 and 3 alone can solve 1/2 of Round 1’s problem.

 

At that time, after thinking this far, I began correlating materials in earnest, and now I think I can synthesize the materials I read in the newspaper. However, if I think through ordinary situations sequentially one by one, I’ll inevitably feel the burden of having to return to previous thoughts, and since this isn’t a test paper but a strategic battle, I absolutely cannot deviate from organicity, so it’s more suitable for stamina and problem-solving to divide currently activated thinking into front and back, laying premises in the back—this doesn’t mean stopping thinking about premises but simply compartmentalizing—and conceiving two thoughts together in the front. Therefore, from now on, I’ll develop thoughts by laying all thinking from 1-3 in the back without omission. Only then can I reach conclusions without error.

 

4. There must be information crucial to taking the test in the newspaper’s personal classified section: Why do I think so? When faced with the problem ‘accomplish something with no clues at all,’ what is the most basic attitude an examinee can take? Hide my information and acquire external information. One can easily become obsessed with just acquiring external information, but whatever the case, that’s also important, so I think all A-class members would have opened newspapers as their first action in this problem. Since the examiner also expects this, they cannot treat the material of newspapers carelessly.

 

Therefore, (1) conclusion 4 is derived. (2) I didn’t come this far just to think such obvious thoughts. Since we concluded in point 2 that remaining Pleroma remnants would be plotting reconstruction, we can immediately grasp what we should utilize from newspaper articles.

 

Articles that are no different from the mouth of media companies, and personal classified sections that are censored but naturally not as much as articles. Between these two, what should we utilize to observe the movements of ‘remnants’?

 

Considering the examination intent, we should give more weight to the hypothesis that ‘codes’ are embedded in personal classified sections that have high bidirectional accessibility for individuals and serve as communication channels in the 19th century.

 

Up to here, if you’re affiliated with headquarters, you shouldn’t not know this and couldn’t not know it.

 

5. What point 4’s conclusion implies is ‘there’s sufficient possibility that codes from Pleroma remnants are being transmitted in personal classified sections.’ So I checked the personal classified section and selected eye-catching ones among numerous ads. Let me point out all the elements that crossed my mind once among those ads.

 

First (5.a) Urgent tutor recruitment ad. They advertised throughout Berlin. They said they’d inform the family name once interview schedules are set. It’s a bit unusual considering ordinary tutor recruitment ads. They say it’s urgent but they’ll conduct up to three interviews.

 

(5.b) Tutor job-seeking ad. They advertised throughout Berlin and Pankow district. Violet Brot are all existing words. If we match the meaning, it’s purple bread. In Korean terms, it would be something like Kim Bora. Of course, Violet isn’t a commonly used form in Germany.

 

(5.c) Chef certification. The thoughtful marketing of posing problems with cooking terms to recruit students is quite admirable. I know the meaning of French cooking terms from etiquette education, but crucially, I’ve never prepared for chef exams and have no interest, so my interest quickly waned and my gaze moved to the next section.

 

Actually, even after I moved on myself, I felt somehow startled for a moment, and the unreachable advice crossed my mind wondering how it would have been if they’d placed the ad in a cooking magazine after paying for advertising anyway. But to make excuses, for general readers like me, it’s inevitable that we don’t feel inclined to look closely at chef stuff, right? Especially for commoners distant from aristocratic-bourgeois education, French cooking terms are inevitably outside their area of interest.

 

(5.d) Typewriter rental. Since it’s an ad printed today, they should be able to find someone to lend it to by the weekend.

 

(5.e) Owl walking. Does walking with an owl mean tying a string to the owl’s leg and taking it around? Or carrying it on your head? Since personal ads charge by character count, that cut-off #### would have had the price per character written there.

 

(5.f) Fishing that absolutely requires bringing only cash. Was there a lake at Berlin University? Are they suggesting coin fishing? After handling what’s bothering me first, it wouldn’t be bad to stop by Berlin University.

 

(5.g) Orange lily garden. It reminds me of cutting lily stems in half during elementary school, adding dye to flasks, and sticking them in.

 

(5.h) Chess. Seeing there’s prize money, I wonder if there are spectators or a hosting club. It feels like looking for someone to play janggi with.

 

That’s the end. The answer to the first step has emerged. Now I’ll bring all previous elements to the front of my thinking and synthesize the clues.

 

Let me now examine why I had to go shake off snow.

 

Keeping point 4, ‘there would be codes in personal classified sections’ in mind and looking at (5.a) through (5.h), what information to emphasize immediately catches the eye. Pleroma remnants who cannot use blatant cipher texts must embed codes in ‘natural’ things. What methods could the enemy use?

 

First, both tutor recruitment and job-seeking ads have strongly suspicious aspects. While they were greatly emphasized in terms of the number of ads posted, even excluding such extra-test factors, ‘not revealing the family name’ and ‘purple bread’ seem quite obviously problematic. Therefore, I recalled the aspects of traditional secret transactions and espionage conducted in small-scale regions. The method of leaving some information or objects with shops or intermediaries and having designated people come to the shops later.

 

With this hypothesis in mind, through (5.a)’s ‘urgent’ and ‘we’ll inform the family name once interview schedules are set,’ we can additionally hypothesize that the unrevealed family name would be the destination. Now ‘interview’ means visiting the shop to hear where I should go—in the ad’s terms, ‘setting a schedule.’ Now I need to find an intermediary to set up an interview. I connected the fact that ‘Purple Bread’ wants to seek a tutor position with this, and through [throughout/Pankow] I guessed that something related to ‘Purple Bread’ could be found in Pankow district.

 

But then I faced a problem. First, I immediately needed to find the intermediary ‘Purple Bread’ and hear information, but the problem was I had no way to prove I was their ally. Second, strangely, another ad caught my eye. An ad containing ‘codes.’

 

Amuse-bouche, à cœur, amuse-bouche, assiette, lyophilisé.

 

I additionally paid attention to (5.c)’s chef certification. This 1. lies outside many people’s interests and 2. doesn’t look like a cipher. My naturally turning away from (5.c), that was the key. The enemy had sufficient incentive to exploit reader psychology.

 

The moment I interpreted the surface meaning of these words, I realized that Pleroma was truly on the verge of collapse, lacking personnel and having lost communication means—telegrams or letters would be censored by the government—and was mentally cornered. To thoroughly avoid government searches, they didn’t entrust even ‘Purple Bread’ representing intermediaries with anything that could be used against them, especially objects or letters. If a traitor reported them and forbidden objects were discovered during surprise searches, they would certainly have their heads thoroughly searched with divine power. So, the messenger had to be prepared to die to find objects and deliver them to ‘Purple Bread.’

 

The above terms respectively mean perfectly cooked/inner core of ingredients/small amounts of food served before the main meal/plate for one serving or its contents/freeze-drying method, and when I thought this far, there’s information that can be connected. What did the examiner intend when giving the abnormal weather phenomenon of 30cm heavy snowfall? What guesses can we make in this strategic game full of various encryptions?

 

I hypothesized connecting each cooking term to ‘time to begin action has come,’ ‘something exists inside something,’ objects to be used before the main operation or something divided (uncertain), something divided (uncertain), ‘literally freeze-drying,’ and connected the ‘freezing’ of the last lyophilisé with the snowfall forecast from three days ago.

 

Pleroma could actively utilize (3.a) while simultaneously converting the disadvantage of (3.b) into an advantage. Now it’s not difficult to know what hypothesis I established.

 

This was the thinking I completed at the newsstand, and it took long to artificially unfold in sequence the simultaneous thinking that should naturally occur. I couldn’t even include everything I considered at the time.

 

What remained was verifying the hypothesis, and from then I began walking to shake off snow. I intended to send a telegram to the address written under ‘Purple Bread’s’ ad—though it was likely a fake address, shouldn’t one test even stone bridges?—and searched the entire neighborhood thinking to find ‘Purple Bread’ and look for ‘freeze-dried’ ‘divided something’ in the snow. Honestly, I was prepared to spend 2 hours. To go around an entire neighborhood, shouldn’t one be prepared for that much?

 

And not long after, I picked up lyophilized soap. Utilizing the snowfall forecast from at least three days ago, they buried objects in places where no one could be blamed, in positions natural to retrieve. This would have been placed just before the snow came and was buried as 30cm of snow fell, and since snow will continue falling for more than two more days, it will freeze solid soon. According to the chef exam ad’s code, this soap dyed dark brown should contain some important object inside. How worried they must have been—Pleroma even damaged the product value to prevent someone from picking this up and selling it as merchandise, showing the care of roughly repackaging it.

 

Let me check at this point. Really, couldn’t someone have mistaken this for chocolate or jelly? Why assign such meaning to soap the color of sweet red bean jelly that someone took a bite of? The possibility that I’m looking with biased eyes like a madman at a pure and innocent chef exam ad?

 

Naturally, if a person ate soap, they’d spit it out. Traces of spitting should inevitably be around that area. However, as I’d already cleared snow to check, there were no remains fallen in that spot. It was intentional work to damage value. Afterward, I wandered the neighborhood more with some hope and discovered a bakery with a purple sign.

 

And we must know there was an important blind spot in our logic so far, and let’s set that aside for now.

 

The bakery owner who stood before me looked at the soap with one bite missing, then held it out to me again.

 

“…There’s an 8-year-old Human in the Gutzmus family.”

 

The bakery owner, that is ‘Purple Bread,’ had to convey this information.

 

We’ve arrived. Now to become a tutor, I had to go interview with the Gutzmus family…

 

[3:28:59]

 

Coming outside, I pulled my hat down low and turned my head. There were still 3 hours and 30 minutes left.

 

‘I need to think.’

 

Why did they give so much time? It’s not some small building but downtown, so I acknowledge there are many variables. However, seeing that objects were hidden at close range only 20-30 minutes from the starting point, headquarters originally had no intention of making us do unnecessary digging. With heavy snow, few people wander the streets, and everyone keeps windows closed from the cold, so few would be watching. To find ‘bread,’ I could just use stealth magic and warp around various places, striking down with my staff to clear snow, so 20 minutes in all directions isn’t far for a mage. Wasn’t there a time when I had to warp and run around all of Berlin?

 

The difficulty is moderate. This test is training to prepare for criminal acts that could occur in real environments, so the difficulty wasn’t set bizarrely or extremely without consideration for examinees. I just went through thoughts one by one, but actually human thinking is continuous yet close together, almost simultaneous, so it probably won’t take everyone very long to get here: even generously estimating, they likely grasped it by the time they left the newspaper stand. But why is 4 hours necessary?

 

30 minutes for the previous problem, and the remaining 3 hours 30 minutes. Within these 3 hours 30 minutes, I might have to do more than I expected. I bit the inside of my lip and entered behind the alley. The ‘bread’ in my pocket is fine. There are no strange magical waves felt in this location. Windows are all tightly closed due to gusts, with curtains drawn inside.

 

Snap—

 

Snapping my fingers to cast stealth magic on my body, I stamped my foot and warped to in front of Steglitz train station. Carefully entering a secluded place, I released stealth and walked out. Finally, Round 2. Having come to southwest Berlin, I glanced at the land still covered in snow and walked forward.

 

“You there.”

 

“…”

 

“Hey!”

 

I stopped abruptly at that call and turned around. Two Espers in police uniforms approached, gesturing with their hands.

 

“We’d like to conduct a body search.”

 

“…”

 

Their blue coats gradually drew closer.

 

I couldn’t help but think of the soap in my right coat pocket. My hand holding the bag, which had just been cold, began sweating. At the same time, my face showed the same peaceful expression as before.

 

‘This is why Pleroma didn’t leave objects with shops.’

 

Since those granted investigative authority were spread throughout the city. The rejecting looks from Humans wearing Union clothes had valid reasons.

 

Magical power flows faintly from the two approaching police officers. They’re definitely Espers. The police officer wordlessly snatched my bag. I raised one hand to show it while narrowing my brow and said.

 

“Please wait a moment.”

 

While the police officers looked me up and down, I pulled out a piece of paper from the opposite pocket.

 

“I’m from Union 101. I’m on a mission, so please let me pass.”

 

“Ah, what brings you here? Then why are your clothes…?”

 

What about my clothes? I did buy them from a slum second-hand clothing store, but naturally that doesn’t mean they only wear worn clothes. The clothes I’m wearing now are a suit that workers in this country could wear fairly normally—not made from expensive fabric but not obviously cheap either. Anyway, it must look strange to these aristocrats’ eyes. I have to give a tailored response. I almost let out a bitter laugh but answered seriously instead.

 

“This is Union classified information, so I can’t tell you. I have brief business at the district office, so I plan to stop by and return.”

 

The two police officers exchanged glances with ambiguous expressions, then said what they’d typically say.

 

“I see. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

 

“Yes, then…”

 

“Wait a moment. Please come with us briefly.”

 

* * *

 

Given the timing, we can’t just let you go. They said that and stubbornly contacted the Union to verify my identity. I’m unwillingly famous, so outside Mimesis they could recognize me just by eye color, but thankfully that wasn’t the case here.

 

I wasn’t in a hurry. Didn’t the bakery owner say they expected me to come at 3 o’clock? I also just need to approach the 8-year-old Human on Gutzmus Street from 3 o’clock onward.

 

And currently, 3 hours remain.

 

I walked toward Gutzmus Street while synthesizing the clues I’d read in the newspaper earlier.

 

‘Three tutor interviews. Small amounts of food. Individual serving plates.’

 

What can we think when synthesizing these three pieces of information?

 

I could make the simple, intuitive, and very clear-seeming interpretation that I need to take tests three times, but considering there are unexplained elements in the cooking term codes, and seeing how the role divisions we’ve experienced so far were very precisely determined, it’s likely that three people come to meet the 8-year-old Human on Gutzmus Street carrying ‘objects divided into individual portions.’ Other hypotheses are possible, but I’m only stating the most likely one.

 

But the real problem lies here.

 

‘Why did they need to announce that in the newspaper? Couldn’t they just know such miscellaneous information among themselves?’

 

The answer is simple. This meant that the 8-year-old Human waiting for us on Gutzmus Street and colleagues in league with them also cannot share situations through letters, while simultaneously being in a position of receiving orders from higher others. The higher person placed newspaper ads to send contact to Gutzmus remnants and Pankow district remnants.

 

Then conducting three tutor interviews to teach the 8-year-old Human of the Gutzmus family, meaning three teacher applicants, is now clear.

 

‘Hmm.’

 

Finally, Gutzmus Street. Now familiar letters began appearing on street signs.

 

Having walked here, I discovered a young Human in the distance dressed exactly like an aristocratic child. The child was playing with snow in a park attached to Gutzmus Street with what appeared to be a 40s Kuinryu caretaker, and strangely kept glancing at the building behind them.

 

As soon as I appeared on the street, I approached the 40s Kuinryu who was watching me intently, and their brow gradually furrowed. After brief consideration, I said what I needed to say in a tone obviously theatrical to anyone watching.

 

“I’ve come for an interview, madam.”

 

“…”

 

He looked at his watch, narrowing his eyes as he asked.

 

“You came early?”

 

“Ah, that’s—”

 

“You must have had a hard time getting here. It’s quite cold today, so let’s go inside quickly.”

 

Before I could even open my mouth to say anything, he stood up with a kind expression, taking the child with him. Then he walked toward the building the child had been glancing at earlier. I followed him into the building, pushing through the snow that reached up to my shins. Since it was best not to give information to the opponent, I kept my mouth shut, and he spoke first.

 

“I’ll give you the payment now, but I need permission. I’ll bring out some tea, so please wait a moment.”

 

“Ah, tea is fine.”

 

When I answered briefly, he turned around in the narrow hallway and extended his hand. I handed him the wrapped soap. The Human smiled slightly and turned back around, leading me to the kitchen. Despite my saying it was fine, he personally made tea and offered it to me.

 

“It wouldn’t be proper not to treat a precious guest who has helped us. Please wait just a moment. I’ll be right back.”

 

“…”

 

I smiled quietly as I looked at the transparent black tea placed in front of me. Now both the child and the 40s Kuinryu had moved to other places.

 

They said there would be three interviews, so where were the remaining two? They were probably lying down somewhere else or hadn’t arrived yet.

 

Earlier, they said there was a blind spot. Why did they only give the bakery owner the information that someone with soap would stop by at 3 o’clock? Couldn’t they have predetermined a person, like ‘Hans will stop by the bakery at 3 o’clock’? Since this closed remnant group would all know each other anyway, wouldn’t it be better to let them know that much?

 

This means that Pleroma hadn’t predetermined a ‘messenger’ who would take the red bean-colored soap to the bakery and then come to Kutsmus Street. The reason for that is…

 

Creak—

 

With the sound of wooden stairs being stepped on, the 40s Kuinryu came down to the first floor kitchen. I unbuttoned my coat and glanced at my waist. The Human looked at my teacup and asked curiously.

 

“Hmm, you haven’t drunk your tea yet.”

 

“Ah, yes.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Excuse me?”

 

I looked at him with a puzzled expression, staring straight into his brown eyes.

 

“I’m sorry, but I also earlier…”

 

“No, well, you don’t absolutely have to drink it. I must have made you feel pressured.”

 

The moment his hand moved toward the back of his dress waist, I moved my hand to the holster I had prepared on my right thigh. It seemed my training hadn’t been wasted. I was the first to point my wand at the opponent. A bright red light burst out before my eyes.

 

Kwaaaaang—!!

 

“…Kheuk…!”

 

The reason they didn’t predetermine a messenger was because of this.

 

They didn’t use their own gang members as ‘messengers.’ They planned to lure the poor by telling them they’d give money for delivering items, and turn whoever came with the items into Pleroma. At least, that was the plan of the Fangko District Remnants.

 

The 40s Kuinryu who had been pushed against the wall quickly lowered the arm that had been covering his face and looked at me. Unmistakable shock rose in his eyes. I slowly lowered my wand and muttered.

 

“You use Vitriol, madam.”

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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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