How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 436

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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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Sleep is coming.

“….”

I slowly closed and opened my eyes. I don’t know how long I slept with my head bent, but my neck won’t turn to look ahead. No, I can’t see ahead either. I don’t know if the world feels black or if I’m mistaking having my eyes closed for having them open. I have no sensation in my entire body. No strength would enter.

‘I’m sleepy.’

I want to sleep just a little more. I thought that and closed my eyes.

But an unidentifiable discomfort struck me and I couldn’t fall asleep. The skin from my temples to my cheeks and neck felt tight. Every time I moved my face and neck muscles even slightly, it felt like my skin would tear. I carefully touched my lips. I felt something like powder.

“Ugh….”

There’s a stone fragment under my tongue. I don’t understand what this situation is. The space is cramped like being inside a coffin and I can’t breathe. What was I doing? What was I doing at the end? I should know that, but my body is heavy and my head is foggy. In this darkness, I couldn’t tell where my body ended. I tried curling my fingers and toes. The sensation of my toes touching the inside of my shoes was unpleasant. However, I gradually began to feel what constituted what and where. I no longer felt like I was in a dream. It seemed that way.

‘…Wait….’

Something slightly soft is caught under my left glove. Before I could pull it, another problem that horrified me appeared. My right leg has no sensation from the shin down. It seems like if I move it a little more, several times, I might feel the muscle movement, but there was no space to move my leg. I pressed down on the thin object caught under my left hand while desperately trying to move my leg somehow.

“…Ca….”

Huh.

I rolled my eyes toward where I heard the sound. Next to the huge stone and broken glass blocking the left side, a voice came from under my left hand. This time in a clearer and more complete word.

“Luca.”

“…What, you too….”

“You know.”

It was Elias. Why is Elias here? He started to speak but said nothing for a while, then whispered much later.

“The smell of blood is too strong.”

“Really?”

“Don’t you smell it?”

“No.”

I answered with a short hum and slowly breathed in. Some dust mixed into my breath. It smelled like the day after rain. The smell of blood? Well. It was the smell of mold and dust.

“I can’t tell anything.”

“Really? But why are you speaking so slowly?”

“Me?”

“Yeah.”

I slightly narrowed my brow. My left forehead felt like it would tear. For some reason, only now did the identity of the stone mass blocking above me like the capstone of a dolmen feel suspicious.

“What is this?”

“Prison 3rd floor.”

Knast, zweiter Stock. Suddenly I came to my senses. I remembered everything. As it became clear what the object above me originally was, goosebumps covered my entire body. I tried to sit up quickly but hit my head on a sharp brick and fell back to the ground.

“Be careful.”

Elias whispered.

“The building…! The victims, wait, are you okay?!”

“Yeah. I put up a barrier and deflected it. I’m scared that other people might have been hit by the stones we deflected. But, Luca. I’m telling you there’s a smell of blood….”

“No, I don’t know. More than that…!”

“Anyway, I’m not bleeding. It must be yours.”

Again, only now. I became aware of something that was pulling at the side of my face. It was blood. Blood had flowed from my head and pooled on the floor. I thought I had completely woken up from the dream earlier, but somehow the world was becoming clearer and clearer.

“Leo. What about the other mages?”

“Leo would have been taken out by Count Rothenhan. At least that’s what it seemed like until communication was cut off. Leo was right in front of the main gate on the first floor.”

Right. Yes. Leo was standing in front of the main gate on the first floor, using his unique ability on the corridors on both sides. At least if the main gate area was intact, he was in a position where he could escape the scene when he noticed something was wrong. There would be the question of which direction the building collapsed, but Leo could wrap vines around the opposite building and fly away….

“Wait.”

“Yeah?”

“Has it not been long since this happened? Why can’t I hear sounds of clearing the building?”

For some reason, I can faintly hear growling breathing sounds from far away, but there’s complete silence regarding the sounds that should definitely be heard. Leo would be able to move debris with his unique ability. Of course, it would take a lot of strength. Since we were on a high floor, if cleanup was in progress, we should have heard sounds right above us. The same would be true even if people other than Leo were doing the cleanup.

I should warp first. This is a moment when I’m grateful magic exists. I gripped Elias’s fingers tightly and snapped my hand while reciting the coordinates of my office.

Snap—

“….”

The addition of a friction sound to my memory, other than that, nothing had changed.

“Luca, it hurts. My finger is going to break.”

“Why…. Wait, why?”

Warp doesn’t work. I kept snapping my fingers while reciting other coordinates I knew. Then I slammed the floor. Nothing changed.

“I already tried it. Warp doesn’t work.”

“Then…!”

“Wait! Don’t use magic. I don’t know what’s above us. If we just blast away recklessly here, other stones might cover us.”

Elias muttered in a low voice. There was a sound of hair moving as if he turned his head. He continued speaking.

“Think about it. Warp doesn’t work and there’s no sound of clearing debris… What would that mean?”

I know. It means exactly one possibility. I answered while feeling my head start to ache.

“It means we’re in a different coordinate system.”

“Right. When the building collapsed, the vitriol that was there and our magic power strongly struck the coordinate system and made a hole, right? We fell through that gap. Otherwise it doesn’t make sense.”

“…Listen. The reason Pleroma’s coordinate systems could be broken was because we laid copies on our original land. But the ground we were standing on is the original. The original can’t be broken.”

“Luca. Haven’t you ever thought that coordinate systems are actually like dimensions? Time stretches out there too. Just looking at how time flows differently from ours makes it obvious. That’s a completely different dimension.”

“….”

“We’ve been going to Pleroma’s world all this time, entering and exiting dimensions different from our original dimension. There could be other dimensions below our dimension. Can dimensions originally be laid out horizontally? I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. If we were magical scholars or physicists, we would have come up with a more proper answer… but that’s what I think.”

“…No, if something like this existed, magical scholars would have discovered it long ago. If this were true, it’s a discovery that could shake the foundations of security, so they couldn’t have been unaware of it.”

“Hmm.”

Elias seemed lost in thought for a moment. Soon he supplemented his hypothesis.

“Or someone cast new spatial magic at the timing when the building collapsed. Then the culprit would have been nearby. If this is true, we might be able to move to the original coordinate system if we draw out all our strength and simultaneously destroy the space.”

“…That’s optimistic.”

The problem is that even the way out is blocked. Using magic is difficult with someone nearby, and it might have been better if we were on the 3rd floor, but since we were on the path from the 2nd to 3rd floor, the 2nd floor ceiling and 3rd floor—as Elias said, in Germany they call the 3rd floor the 2nd floor, zweiter Stock—floor and walls, and even the roof would be piled on top, so we need to be careful.

“Nicolaus.”

“What.”

“Actually, you know. I set up a scholarship.”

I know. It’s something Elias has always had his eye on and has been doing since some time. I didn’t know he would have done it this early.

“Five elementary schools, and… there’s one at the gymnasium too. Remember it well. Even among commoners, it’s only for commoners who aren’t bourgeois. You just need to cover tuition until they go to university. If we get out of here, please manage that.”

“Elias.”

“It’s not a request. Actually, I did it in your name. Saint Nicolaus.”

“Sorry, but you said there’s a smell of blood.”

“….”

If we’re being precise, isn’t the one with a slightly higher possibility of not getting out me, not him? What’s the point of entrusting it to me? I slowly closed and opened my eyes. After silence, Elias spoke in a trembling voice as if angry.

“Right, that’s why I’m saying it. You can’t fall asleep again.”

“Of course. What’s wrong with you.”

I muttered while fidgeting with the lump caught under my left hand.

“We can just get out together. In perfectly fine condition.”

“A perfectly fine person doesn’t say one word and then wait ages before saying the next word. And you didn’t even laugh bitterly when I said I impersonated you just now. You’re almost sleeping right now. Right?”

“I’m really awake. And that could happen.”

“You’re not like your usual self.”

“I’m the same, Elias.”

“No, you should ask ‘Really?'”

I didn’t answer and closed my eyes. Yeah, that might be true. Whether it’s because I haven’t been awake long or because I hit my head, no thoughts come to mind. It might be because of the darkness. I don’t understand what’s slow when my brain is accepting this conversation so quickly.

“Are all your limbs fine?”

“One leg is questionable but it’s not bleeding. It should be okay.”

“….”

Silence flows.

“To think the smell of blood would feel this scary.”

It was Elias’s soliloquy. He whispered and asked.

“Have you ever been covered in blood on your hands? Not just a little bit, but enough to wash with blood.”

“No.”

“Do you know blood dries really fast?”

“Yeah.”

“Then do you know that skin shrinks as it dries and sticks? Hand skin becomes completely dry. From the wrist down feels like it shrinks to 0.85 times. If you look closely at the boundary between wrist and hand, you can really see the skin being pulled. And there’s an incredible foreign sensation between the nails and hand skin that you can’t stand without washing immediately.”

“That’s a strange way to put it.”

“Strange? I’d say it’s an extremely realistic expression. Take note, Luca.”

“Even if I take note, I can’t wipe it off right now.”

“That must hurt.”

“Right.”

After giving a short answer and just breathing, I heard something moving outside. Elias began speaking again. His voice, calm as if reading a book, spread through the darkness.

“When I was young, I went pheasant hunting with adults.”

“Really?”

“I was good at hunting even as a child, so when the adults were struggling, I swept them all up.”

“…”

“Luca?”

“Go on, I’m listening.”

“I worked hard to beat my cousins, catching pheasants made of magic power in the hunting grounds. So I was almost winning. My cousins were people who only used wands, so they were completely hopeless at hunting… Right, so they probably didn’t even know that pheasants like reed beds. Even magical pheasant images are still pheasants, you know. Naturally, wouldn’t they be in the reed beds? Since I’d already caught many pheasants in the fields and there were no more to catch, I ran there. Just then, there was one incredibly colorful and large cock pheasant that was distracted drinking water from a pond.”

“…”

“The dog tried to run forward, but I stopped it. It was clear I could catch it easily, and it was obvious the dog would just make the pheasant escape if it ran forward. Everything was perfect. The wind was blowing from behind and downward, it was drinking water so it didn’t know anything, and its body was so large it didn’t look like it could fly well. I stopped about 50 meters away, aimed slightly above the pheasant’s head, and pulled the trigger. But the sound was a bit strange.”

I opened my eyes and looked toward where Elias would be.

“The sound of the bullet piercing the body was a bit more squelchy. Something with multiple layers was bursting. It was just an instant, but you’d know if you’ve hunted. It was different. Before I could even lower the gun from my shoulder, something felt wrong and I tried to run straight there, but I heard a scream. There was a sound like lungs being squeezed, going ‘kkeok, kkeok,’ and the moment I heard that sound, my feet stopped and I couldn’t run. I had no choice but to keep standing there.”

“…”

“The dog didn’t retrieve the pheasant. Instead, it just stood there not knowing what to do, looking between me and the pond where the pheasant was. From far away, I could hear the sound of it trying somehow to get up, continuously scratching at the grass and flapping its wings. For several minutes straight. The pheasant hunt was supposed to be with pheasants made of magic power, you know.”

“…”

“It turned out the adults had mixed in one living pheasant in the meantime. You could say it was an Easter egg. But I happened to shoot the real pheasant that was still breathing.”

“How old were you that they let you shoot a gun?”

“I was ten, I think.”

“I can’t believe it. I’m curious about the intentions of the adults who included you in the hunt. So, how was it.”

“I shot a real pheasant. So it died.”

It was a dry answer.

“After the sound of wing flapping stopped, I went close to the pond. The soil was stained reddish-brown. The grass too. It was like the card gardeners painting white roses before the Queen of Hearts arrived were there. The grass where the pheasant lay looked exactly like grass that had grown red from birth, so I sat in the clover field and watched until the blood dried.”

Following his dry voice, the smell of blood wafted over. I pictured young Elias sitting in the red grass field. ‘Watched.’ What, the grass, the pheasant, the blood? I remained silent. I didn’t want to imagine what he might have been thinking at the time.

“To think that life depends on this trivial water.”

“…”

“Without this liquid, one world disappears. Forever. No matter what you do, it won’t come back.”

There are those who bring it back by various means, but that was a worthless story. If you come back to life that way, you’re already in a different world than before. That’s not the same person but a different person.

“So, Luca. I was thinking that thought.”

I didn’t speak. I wanted to say sorry, but that wouldn’t be the kind of answer he was looking for. It wasn’t like I crashed into a rock on purpose because I wanted to collide, and this wasn’t something for me to apologize about either. He was just saying that’s how it was. To wake me up, to keep talking for that purpose. I looked into the darkness and said quietly.

“For you, blood means death.”

“Right. So you can’t sleep.”

I burst out laughing. I wanted to at least pat his back. No, you say you won’t sleep, but until when? I should have given him reassurance, but under this pile of stones, what I could do was limited, which was frustrating. Besides, no matter what I said at length, Elias wouldn’t be very pleased. Didn’t he say I speak slowly? To Elias who was asking why I was like that, I gave a different answer.

“Me too. For me too, blood is like that.”

Conceptual death. That might be a better expression. Elias didn’t speak. That itself was a question. Now it was my turn to talk about why I thought that way. But I didn’t open my mouth. Only in my head did the answer continue.

The weight of life is forgotten and being used as a tool. It wasn’t a problem limited to just blood, though.

I hate seeing it, smelling it. Drinking it is of course the same. Because it’s fishy, because it tastes bad? But if that were all, it couldn’t be a more comfortable reason. Because it’s unnatural? Right. That was a factor that added to the disgust. But the world is already full of unnatural things. If natural is good, it would be better to escape from the state and society. Then? Because blood, the benefits gained from blood, weaken the weight with which I regard life within me. Because I’m afraid that might happen. Like Pleroma, like the money-worshippers. So I don’t even want to bring to consciousness the fact that I can absorb magic power from blood and gain benefits. Because of the fear that repetitive thoughts might make me fall into complacency.

“Luca, you can’t sleep again.”

“I’m not sleeping. You’re the one who should stop talking. More than that, seeing how we fell like this, other people who were in the building could have fallen into this coordinate system too.”

“That’s right.”

Elias answered in an empty tone, as if he didn’t want to think about anything. I know he’s probably worried that the other people who were on the first floor might have been crushed to death. I didn’t say more. Instead, Elias began speaking again.

“And you know, Luca. Keep your barrier up well. There’s still Vitriol scattered around.”

“Right. Now let’s discuss how we’re going to get out. How about shooting magic power to check what’s above us.”

“Magic power doesn’t penetrate stone. It would have been nice if Philip or whoever was here.”

Elias continued speaking while tapping the stone with his finger.

“I have a bit more space. On my side, pillar debris is supporting the collapsed floor. The 3rd floor fell toward your side, Luca. Looking at how there’s not much 3rd floor wall and roof debris above me, it seems to have flowed toward your side, and the moment I shoot magic power to break this stone, even the weight I was supporting on this side will shift to your side, so you’ll be crushed to death, Luca. Ah, there’s no way. We work together and when we say one, two, we push this stone forward.”

“Can you lift a house with magic power?”

“Haha. Then how about this. I was thinking about shooting magic power with my finger like this to cut the stone in a square shape?”

“It’s not wood, and stone would probably crack before that happens.”

“Actually, I think so too. Then the center of gravity would be off again and you’d get crushed… Damn it. Are we going to die calling for help forever?”

“Should we dig the floor?”

“That too… It’s hard to say the possibility of death has decreased. We’re a bit high up, so it would take incredibly long to dig down.”

Rather, going up would be faster, right. I think so too.

I tapped the limestone wall that had been the ceiling. The sound is heavy. Lift this pile of stones with our strength? Unless your unique ability is strength enhancement, that’s ridiculous. Even if you can get some enhancement effect with magic power, I’ve never heard of mages having the strength to lift a single-story house. Really, as Elias said, are we stuck with no choice but to be trapped? That can’t be. I need to find out immediately what happened to Leo, what happened to the other mages, what happened to the victims. A way…

‘Wait.’

A way?

I held my breath. After catching the sound I was looking for, I quickly asked Elias.

“Eli. Is there a gap on your side?”

“Hm? Just a tiiiny bit. Wind comes in through here. We don’t have to worry about suffocating. We should worry about dying of hunger, but I usually eat a lot so…”

Elias started babbling about something. This wasn’t the time for that. I had found a way out, so I had to execute it immediately. I pressed his finger, the only thing I could reach, and said.

“Try letting magic power flow through there bit by bit. Make it flow over the stone on my side.”

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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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