How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 44

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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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How to Survive as the Second Son of a Magic Family (44)

An unexpected reaction.

The person standing before me right now is undoubtedly the same person from Dastrothe’s first interview photo.

This isn’t a situation where he should be greeting me with such a smile, is it?

He looked me over thoroughly with eyes like he was observing some fascinating creature, then tilted his head in confusion.

“But… what brings you here? There are no restricted areas or commercial districts around here. You’ve come quite deep into the area.”

“…I came because I have something personal to discuss with you. Could we have a conversation?”

“It’s nothing strange, is it? Don’t tell me magical beasts have come this far…”

He doesn’t think it’s strange? Seriously?

I was dumbfounded, but starting off emotionally wouldn’t be a good choice.

“Well, I think Belter would know more about that matter.”

“Me?! Did I do something wrong?”

“…”

I felt a headache coming on for some reason and smiled.

Narke sighed briefly beside me and tapped my arm.

“Count.”

“Yes…”

Narke smiled and snapped his fingers.

—”Come to think of it, I’m not sure what I should call you. I guess I’ll just call you Count Nicolaus?”

“…!”

It wasn’t his words that surprised me.

The method of delivery was shocking.

Just like how Fai’s words didn’t travel through the air but were directly embedded in my mind, Narke’s words were transmitted in the same way.

‘Did he do this with divine power too?’

This would be useful to learn as well.

I nodded my head.

Narke smiled and spoke again.

—”Haha, it feels a bit strange. I’ll call you that for now. And… that person really doesn’t know? There’s no thought of Dastrothe at all in his mind right now.”

He’s not thinking about Dastrothe?

Even after seeing me, that’s possible…

‘…Wait.’

That’s entirely possible.

This could be an opportunity to screw over Dastrothe even more.

Having assessed the situation, I soothed him with a gentle tone.

“No, it’s not that. I have something to investigate. I came because I need Belter’s help.”

“Help? Is there something I could inform you about, Count?”

“Of course. I’m in desperate need of information right now. If you have time, I’d like to have a brief conversation with you, Belter.”

He looked back and forth between Narke and me with a confused expression, then opened the door wide.

“I still don’t quite understand what’s going on, but… please come in.”

We sat at the table he indicated.

“I don’t really have anything to offer you right now. Let me go out and buy something.”

“No, we’re on a tight schedule. It’s fine.”

It’s already almost 4:30.

We have other places to visit after this, so we can’t dawdle here for long.

“Really? But you came all this way… I’m sorry.”

“It’s really fine. We’re the ones who came asking for help.”

“Ah, that’s right. What did you want to ask about?”

“Have you heard anything about me?”

Narke snickered beside me at my words.

Saying it like this makes me sound like someone with an inflated ego.

I suppressed the urge to explain myself and seriously waited for his answer.

“You’re Count Nicolaus. I saw the Imperial Newspaper a few days ago.”

“You saw it. Do you have any other information?”

“Well… just that you did something completely unexpected with Duke Elias… Is there something else?”

He furrowed his brow in deep thought and stroked his chin.

No matter how much he thought, nothing seemed to come to mind.

I took out yesterday’s issue of Dastrothe from my bag and handed it to him.

“Oh.”

He frowned at the cover and nodded.

“Nice. Yesterday’s issue is a special feature on Count Nicolaus.”

“The content probably isn’t very nice.”

He flipped through a few pages of the magazine and smiled awkwardly.

“Haha… well… that’s certainly true. Did you actually read this yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Really? Are you okay?”

He narrowed his eyes and continued cautiously.

“Don’t tell me you’re so calm because it’s all true…? Like you really are meeting seven people at age 77…”

“No. That’s impossible.”

I took out today’s magazine and pushed it toward him.

“Read this one too.”

He nodded and turned to the first page.

The smile completely disappeared from his face.

“Huh?”

With a bewildered expression, he grabbed the book with both hands and flipped it back and forth, then skimmed through it from the beginning.

‘As expected…’

I let out a hollow laugh.

Those bastards hadn’t gotten permission to use the photos.

They just took any face and used it.

It’s a processing method that could lead to serious consequences.

Whether it was a mistake by whoever gathered the materials or not, it’s truly surprising that even a place like Dastrothe operates so carelessly.

‘Well… everything’s like that.’

Even the Imperial Palace operates haphazardly, so what can you expect?

His face pale, he opened to the page with his photo again and pointed it out to us.

“What is this? Isn’t this me?”

“There’s no point asking me that…”

“Right, of course. It looks like… no, it is me. This is definitely me. But why is this here?!”

Narke stared directly into his eyes and asked.

“Belter, don’t you know anything about this?”

“No. I never had such an interview… no, I never even received a request for an interview! And I’m seeing Count Nicolaus for the first time today, so why would I say such things? What on earth are these people talking about?”

“Hmm, I see. That’s the truth.”

Narke spoke while looking at Belter, as if trying to reassure him.

In reality, it was a message for me.

“Of course it is. I’m so shocked I can barely speak! How could they use my face for something like this?!”

Not “Why is my face here?” but “How could they use it for something like this?”

In any case, this person isn’t completely unrelated to the matter.

Narke also sensed this and immediately questioned him about the full story.

“What exactly happened?”

“Some people came before asking if they could take photos for a newspaper, offering 5,000 pel for five shots… I think what they took then must be this.”

“5,000 pel.”

Narke repeated, pressing down on the end of his words.

I bought them for 100,000 won each.

If it were me, I’d hate having my face sold more than the utility of 500,000 won, so I wouldn’t do it… but that’s different for each person.

“They asked me to look at the sea over there and make a serious expression, stuff like that. They kept talking about the sea, so I thought they were people here for regional promotion. They introduced themselves that way too… I never thought it would be used for something like this…”

Belter grabbed his head with a considerably heated face.

I leaned forward and asked.

“They didn’t tell you exactly what it would be used for?”

“They just said it would be used for article concepts. If I had known it was for something like this, I wouldn’t have done it.”

“I see.”

I smiled and checked my watch.

The other two will finish faster than expected too.

* * *

He flew into a rage saying he should sue Dastrothe immediately, then exchanged contact information with us.

After thinking calmly for a moment, he remembered the lawsuit costs and calmed down, but since I could cover that, he just needed to be willing to participate in the court battle.

And the other two were similar cases to this man.

These two were also speechless about their photos being used that way, but they seemed tired of getting involved in a lawsuit that would clearly drag on for years and wanted to cover up the incident appropriately.

Still, after persuasion, I was able to obtain testimony to submit to the authorities.

And… now it’s 6 o’clock.

“It’s 6 o’clock!”

The moment I checked my watch and lowered my arm, Fai suddenly raised his head from Narke’s robe pocket.

He had been sleeping the whole time, but he must have remembered what I muttered when I was in the room with him yesterday.

Since I planned to use 6 o’clock as the turning point for impression scores, it’s important to check the numbers from this time.

“Wow~ Right on the dot!”

Narke checked his wristwatch and exclaimed in admiration.

‘But how does that guy know the time right now…’

Even his owner is learning about this ability for the first time…

It would be nice to take Fai around when I don’t have a watch.

Anyway, that’s not what’s important.

I opened my status window.

Lucas Rene Ascanien

Impression: -9.9 [+5.0003821]

Earlier, the 10000s broke and it dropped to 8931.

While I finished my investigation and came out, it dropped another 5000.

Considering that the evening newspaper hasn’t been published yet, the change is quite significant for 3-6 PM.

At this rate, from now as we enter the full evening time slot, it will drop even more rapidly, and it will fall to the 4000s before even an hour or two pass.

No, it’s not “will drop even more rapidly” – it’s already happening.

Impression: -9.9 [+5.0003789]

Right. Not surprising at all.

In the time I blinked, another 32 was cut.

We stopped by the Bavaria Investigation Bureau and moved back to school.

We changed clothes in the dormitory and warped to the meeting place for a conference.

Narke had already arrived before me and was waiting for me with other students.

After lightly greeting the students and taking my seat, the students resumed their conversations among themselves.

“No, I really don’t know, but honestly I hope it’s not true. Who are they doing this for?”

“For Pleroma’s benefit. Ah, they really can’t read the situation. Even if they were going to do it, they should have done it later…”

“What if it turns out there’s Pleroma on that side?”

Here too, it’s all talk about Nicolaus.

Still, since they’re all students who extremely hate Pleroma, regardless of the rumors, they’re blindly taking Nicolaus’s side.

Anyway, Nicolaus is also the original whistleblower of this incident, and a person who dealt a major blow to Pleroma along with Elias.

I stood in front of the blackboard with my prepared materials and spoke.

“Alright, it’s already 7:30. Let’s start analyzing today’s news.”

I took out the newspaper sheets from various media outlets that I had kept here and cast magic on them.

The letters forming today’s articles gradually revealed themselves.

[ [Hesse] Nicolaus Ernst joins purification efforts in Grand Duchy of Hesse and 2 other countries “Will help as many citizens as possible”]

[King Leopold Württemberg, “Sincerely grateful to Nicolaus Ernst for responding to our request”]

[D-3 until guidance period… Württemberg, Hesse, Baden succeed in recruiting mages amid personnel shortage]

“Wow.”

The students who opened the evening newspaper with me let out brief exclamations.

“This person is really going to multiple places.”

“Bavaria alone has five restricted areas, and he’s going to three more countries from here?”

“So he’ll be making rounds to four places a week including Bavaria…? Does he have the strength for that?”

“Right, let’s bury Dastrothe with this!”

The last comment made me laugh.

We’re on the same page.

One of the reasons the decline has become gentler is precisely because of this.

Yesterday, I moved to Bavaria to commission an investigation to attack Dastrothe’s false reporting that would be announced today.

Dastrothe must have bribed people to create evidence, so if we catch and smash that, many things will be resolved.

‘This alone would be enough to defend adequately.’

But when dealing with crazy bastards like Dastrothe who go beyond common sense, we shouldn’t finish things ‘moderately.’

They could bribe our witnesses or brazenly come up with absurd explanations like ‘it was just a reference image,’ targeting the public who are swayed by sensational things regardless of the truth once again.

For those who claim I’m connected to seven different things without any evidence, it’s a path they could fully consider.

Then we just need to beat them down so they can’t think of getting back up, so they get exhausted and fall out first.

To do that, I need to give them an excuse to attack me once more.

And these articles are exactly the excuse I gave them.

“Wow, all 7 newspapers have this story on the front page.”

“At least they’re not acting like Dastrothe, which is fortunate.”

Various media outlets were reporting on the front page that the purification problems of the three countries had been resolved.

From federal-level regional newspapers to Empire-level newspapers, virtually all places corresponding to serious journalism showed the same tendency.

If they only cared about boosting sales, regardless of whether I decided on purification or not, they would have copied Dastrothe’s report and just changed a few words and pasted it, but they didn’t. That wasn’t even a political story to begin with.

Such serious newspapers have consistently strongly criticized the moves of gossip papers like Dastrothe.

Unless specific interests are established, there’s no reason to report the controversy they created here and give it strength.

The current time is 7:40.

It’s already been over an hour since I last checked.

Around this time, it should be time to gradually encounter evening broadcasts.

‘Let me check once.’

Lucas Rene Ascanien

Impression: -9.9 [+5.0002829]

An hour ago it was 3789.

960 dropped.

‘Huh.’

960, they say.

Earlier, 5000 points dropped.

If we divide the amount that dropped between 3-6 PM equally, about 1670 dropped per hour.

But between 6 PM and 7:40 PM, less than 1000 dropped.

We even entered a period when newspaper purchase rates increase, so impression scores should have dropped more than during 3-6 PM normally.

If this level of decline is happening in the second most damaging period after morning…

‘It’s over.’

I raised the corners of my mouth and dismissed the status window from my view.

This means that this morning’s Dastrothe already sufficiently drew public attention.

It also means there weren’t that many people encountering Dastrothe’s news for the first time in the evening.

‘The impression score didn’t drop as much as expected.’

Looking at the trends so far, it means that while people paid attention to that report, they didn’t really trust it much.

This means that the favorable impression of me from the live broadcast took hold more strongly than the gossip.

Dastrothe’s timing selection had failed.

And on top of that, even their growth momentum was completely cut off….

‘They should be getting impatient around now.’

Now, I just need them to attack me with a new topic.

It’s already been almost two hours since the purification report went out.

That’s enough time for Dastrothe to revise their articles.

Even if it can’t match the morning sales, they’d be reluctant to give up the evening revenue, so if those bastards get a bit more greedy, they’ll try to attack me in this area too.

Maybe they’ll even put out a new report tomorrow morning.

I looked down at the newspaper and quietly asked.

“Anyone have Dastrothe right now?”

“Dastrothe? Me!”

A student pulled out a magazine from his bag, then froze solid without taking his eyes off the title. He showed the magazine cover to the students.

“Look at this…. These guys are spouting crazy nonsense again.”

At the bright red text covering the bottom of the cover, the students’ chatter died down.

Today’s Dastrothe title had been changed.

[17.75 Million Pel in Tax Money, For Adultery Funds? Count Nicolaus’s ‘Sacred’ Purification]

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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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