How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 441

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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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Munich Residenz harmonized well with the moonlight. This wasn’t the time to be having such sentiments, but standing in front of Leone’s house as a ghost brought new feelings. It had been 8 hours since entering the extra chapter.

‘…Finally.’

I finally arrived. This was the fifth time I experienced the strange sensation of body and soul separating. I was now completely accustomed to it.

“This is absurd.”

The deceased’s excited voice echoed in my head. Maria Osterreicheste looked around rapidly and exclaimed.

“This is Munich in 1898?!”

I caught my breath and nodded. Yes, this is Munich in 1898. How refreshing to encounter someone so delighted in a space where we were dying. Even after explaining the reasons we had to come to this space and everything that had happened so far, seeing her joy confirmed that this person was truly a scholar to the bone.

“To come to the future using Count Everett as a medium! Count Everett’s blood and magic power brought us…!”

He was so overwhelmed he couldn’t choose his words and just spread his hands, then suddenly turned toward me, widening his eyes and said.

“The unique qualities and mental imagery abilities you possess led us to the future, no, to somewhere that is neither the material plane nor the astral plane. How is such a thing possible? Coming to the future is amazing, but more than that, how can you maintain this vast empty world? No people, no animals, only plants as life!”

“….”

I thought this before. The Duke introduced various magical formulas including unique ability replication techniques, but knew almost nothing about their actual operating principles. It just ended with ‘put in blood, soak strange cursed grass in an elixir, dry it and burn it, place candles at the pentagram vertices, and chant declarative incantations you’d only see in plays.’

This time too, ‘putting in blood’ wasn’t omitted. As before, I used Archduchess Maria’s blood to create medicines and deploy magical formulas, but could only move to the past of EC Stage 1—couldn’t even move to the future of EC Stage 1—and couldn’t escape to the present of our world. As a last resort, I used my blood and after various twists and turns, came to this place.

‘…I can’t believe it. Still….’

I can’t believe it in many ways. Why is my blood involved here again? This was a serious problem. I entrusted my soul to the world’s magic power and was lost in thought when I asked.

“Then this isn’t the astral plane?”

“That’s right! The astral plane, you see, isn’t somewhere separate. It coexists with our material plane but is a world we can’t fully perceive. Magic power!”

Right…. It’s the world of ghosts, so it would normally be overlapping above us. Anyway, hearing the interpretation of a ‘real occult enthusiast’ made it clear. My understanding of the astral plane was rock bottom. Right now the Duke and I are in astral body form in the astral plane, but the spatial magic itself that Elias and I fell into wasn’t the astral plane. I’m discarding all the hypotheses I’ve built so far. As I exhaled deeply, the Duke ran around here and there, rattling off his interests like a machine gun.

“I said this before. After Ion Forso, we became able to feel the ether of the astral plane. But is that perfect? Not at all. We became able to detect only an infinitesimal amount of ether among this world’s ether. That’s what we’re making a fuss about with Ion Forso and whatnot. That’s exactly what we mages are.”

“I understand….”

Right after moving to the extra chapter, I couldn’t do anything due to overwhelming drowsiness. While Lukas Everett’s body was fine, my mind wasn’t. Though I felt much more refreshed now that I’d emerged as an astral body, I still couldn’t be very energetic. Whether I was still depressed or not, the Duke excitedly said.

“Well, the magical academia doesn’t really acknowledge the concept of ether itself.”

Maria looked around the sky and continued as if talking to herself.

“More than that, this place is like…. Should I say it’s a place where values were adjusted to enter the astral plane? It feels like purgatory.”

“What exactly do you mean?”

The Duke suddenly turned his head and began staring intently into my eyes. A bit eerie. He was ready to explain to me again. He spread both hands and began explaining enthusiastically.

“As you know, magic power floats around in our world. Look! What’s floating here is natural magic power. And we have magic power in our bodies too, right? This is human body magic power.”

“Yes.”

“Both are magic power but slightly different, right? You can know this intuitively. We know because we’re mages, but from now on, assuming we’re not mages, you must look at magic from a very unfamiliar perspective. Are you confident?”

“I’m confident.”

Though I answered briefly in a whisper due to exhaustion, the Duke nodded satisfactorily and said.

“This is something non-mages or anyone can easily know—there’s a difference that magic power floating in the universe isn’t subordinate to the human body while our body’s magic power is subordinate to the human body. In other words, their properties are somewhat different. If there were no difference between natural magic power and human magic power, any mage could just pull magic power from the air when running low, right? Then why would there be mages in the world who can’t warp due to lack of magic power? The moment mages who can’t warp exist abundantly in the world, it means humans can’t absorb natural magic power and use it as their own.”

“…You’re really starting from the basics….”

“That’s right. Let’s follow the exact process non-mages use to reason about us. Count Everett, from now on I’ll speak based on having this level of reasoning ability.”

“How kind of you. Yes, please continue.”

“Now, what happens when we get hit by someone else’s magic power?”

“It hurts.”

Archduchess Maria should have been a teacher. When I gave the correct answer, he clapped his hands with a moved expression.

“That’s right. Magic power basically has aggressiveness. Excluding special magic power close to individual unique abilities like healing magic power, speaking only of general magic power that most mages have. Then, next. What are magic medicines made of? What about magic lamp materials?”

“Both are made of magic power.”

“Then shouldn’t it hurt when you get hit by magic medicine made of magic power? Shouldn’t your scalp sting when standing under magic lamps made of magic power? Why doesn’t it hurt when you get hit by magic medicine? Why isn’t our skin attacked when we’re under magic lamps? What can we figure out from this?”

I answered with a bitter laugh.

“…We’d have to realize that the magic power in magic medicines and magic lamps has different properties from general human body magic power. Unless you’re a magical scholar, you wouldn’t know exactly how the properties differ, but anyway, anyone would intuitively have no choice but to know that they’re ‘different’ from each other.”

“Correct!”

The Duke snapped his fingers and looked at the sky as he spoke.

“Let’s think. How is this world different from the world we knew?”

“It’s completely empty. Only buildings exist.”

“That’s right! Now, in order. Natural magic power, human body magic power, artificial magic power. Which of the three appears to have the highest purity?”

“Hmm…. If purity means fewer impurities, artificial magic power would be the cleanest? I’m not a magical scholar so I don’t know well. But if purity means the degree of approaching magic power’s essence, naturally natural magic power would be the purest. It existed even before Ion Forso.”

“That’s it. This world is a world with increased purity.”

Increased purity.

For some reason those words sounded eerie, so I looked at the Duke. Whether I thought anything or not, he continued with shining eyes.

“They increased the world’s magic power purity to the extreme, excluding humans.”

“….”

“You went to the astral plane before. What did you feel? Even though it was a world before Ion Forso, didn’t you clearly feel magic power in the air?”

“I did.”

“That’s exactly the natural magic power we usually can’t easily feel. If this place is an artificially created world as you told me 8 hours ago, the creators of this world might have calculated an intermediate world for entering the astral plane. A world where impurities were removed so only natural magic power could be easily felt.”

“Can you enter the astral plane by doing this?”

“The possibility increases greatly. The astral projection magic medicine cigarette I made is also medicine that lets you perceive natural magic power, isn’t it? If you perceive natural magic power and find the point where natural magic power and human body magic power resonate, you could move around in astral body form. But no matter how well you arrange the environment, it would be useless if you can’t perceive natural magic power.”

The Duke was explaining when his attention quickly shifted elsewhere, so he suddenly turned his head and ran.

“By the way, exactly how far does this space’s range extend…. I’ll go take a look around once.”

“No, wait…!”

“Ah.”

The Duke who was about to run southwest stopped right there. My intuition told me it wasn’t because of me. He turned around with a bright smile and clapped his hands.

“If this place is wider than I thought, it might not have been made by humans! For people to create and operate this vast space would be tremendously cost-inefficient—this would be difficult to create even if a nation poured a year’s worth of budget into it. Look at the solidity of this space!”

Since the Duke was speaking while spreading his arms in midair and looking at the sky, I had no idea what solidity he wanted me to see, but I faintly smiled anyway. Wasn’t it because of that solidity that we couldn’t get out? No matter how mentally exhausted my face looked while smiling, the Duke just excitedly shouted.

“This is like the wonder of the universe…!”

“Right…. The mystery of the universe? Then I’m curious about this—were we dropped here by the universe rather than some crazy bastards? Or is only the space natural while crazy bastards dropped us in?”

I asked half-resignedly and carelessly, so perhaps because of that, no answer came. When I looked up toward him, I saw the Duke standing dazed with his mouth open.

“This….”

“What’s wrong?”

“….”

“Your Grace.”

“I need to do some research.”

The Duke’s facial muscles were gradually stiffening. I slightly furrowed my brow and approached him. Then he spoke in an attitude completely different from before, not excited at all.

“Please give me time. This isn’t something I can just state my reasoning about right now.”

“….”

What hypothesis did he form to act like this?

Separately from that, how much time could I give to a person in a world where time seemed stopped if I didn’t enter? I answered with a feeling like I was crushing his scholarly enthusiasm.

“…Yes, I understand.”

“You said your friend fell into this space.”

This was what I had explained. Before coming here, I said a friend had fallen into an unknown spatial magic set in future Munich.

The Duke stroked his chin and said meaningfully.

“It might not have been dropped with malicious intent. But it could have been dropped with malicious intent too. Either way, there are problems.”

“….”

I had something I wanted to say, but instead, I decided to bring up a different question.

“Your Grace.”

The Duke turned toward me again. I asked him.

“You said the astral plane transcends space and time. Then it’s theoretically possible for your astral body alone to go to 1898. Isn’t that right?”

This isn’t the 1898 of EC Stage 1, but I didn’t mention that fact. According to the theory I’m about to explain, whether this is an extra chapter or reality doesn’t have very meaningful importance in that it’s just one of countless worlds anyway. Of course, I’m not confident that the theory I’m about to explain is the correct answer, but in a situation like now, it’s worth considering.

The Duke thought calmly and then nodded.

“As I’ve been saying, it’s theoretically possible but has never succeeded before. It’s only become possible now because we’re using Count Everett’s blood instead of mine.”

“Your Grace. From now on, could you promise not to ask where I learned this information?”

“Huh? Yes. Sure.”

He widened his eyes and turned his body completely to look at me. I turned his shoulders forward and walked to find Elias.

“There’s something called many-worlds quantum mechanics theory. First, assume there’s an observer and an electron. Both the electron and observer are in superposition states. The moment the observer observes the electron, the wave function branches into different worlds, and at this time, each branched world cannot interact with the others. For example, if I was in world 1 when my eyes were closed, the next moment I would be in one of the branched worlds. Simply put, when branching into world 1-A where I open my eyes to see the scenery and world 1-B where I haven’t opened my eyes yet, the observer in world 1-A cannot interact with the already-branched world 1-B. Even for the observer in world 1-A to accept the existence of world 1-B is impossible through observation and only possible through thought experiments. In other words, even if the subject perceiving the world is all ‘me,’ the 1900 of the two worlds becomes different 1900s.”

“Interesting. Laplace’s demon would cry.”

“….”

Even though he was someone who hadn’t encountered quantum mechanics concepts, he saw through what I was trying to say. This person fundamentally had no choice but to be a scholar. The fact that I, who had little connection to physics as an academic discipline, was discussing related topics in front of this person—despite it being background explanation necessary to hear an answer to my question—felt burdensome. I nodded at his joke and quietly asked.

“Which 1900 of the two worlds can Your Grace go to through astral projection?”

At those words, Maria narrowed her eyes and stroked her chin. Then, she spoke in a clear voice.

“Anywhere. I can go wherever I want. That’s exactly what an astral body is.”

“….”

“An astral body should be able to freely traverse all overlapping worlds. Because it’s something higher than the material plane.”

If that’s the case, there are still parts I don’t understand. Of course, this whole situation where I have to think about quantum mechanics and astral projection together doesn’t make sense from the start, but let’s set that aside for now and think under the constraint that both must be applied simultaneously.

“Your Grace said you minored in human studies at the University of Vienna. Was there another department you considered?”

“Hmm, my passion for human studies was so great that I didn’t think deeply about others, but I did briefly consider studying sociology.”

“According to that theory, Your Grace should be able to astral project to a world where you minored in sociology at the University of Vienna. How about it?”

“Such… I’ve never succeeded in crossing over to worlds where other possibilities opened up. It must be due to my insufficient training.”

He can’t freely traverse them. This is the key point. In reality, unlike the theory, even though he used an astral body, he couldn’t traverse worlds at will.

“Then what kind of past can Your Grace travel to?”

“That’s quite a difficult question. First, it seems I can move to pasts I’ve experienced. Then we should think about when we went 183 years before Ion Forso. Seeing that I can only return to specific branches among the countless worlds that ‘branched’ before I was born… doesn’t this somewhat conflict with Count Everett’s hypothesis?”

“It would. Using the word ‘return’ is ambiguous to begin with.”

“That’s true, but for convenience’s sake. If we can only ascend along specific branches even when we astral project, then fundamentally worlds don’t ‘branch,’ do they? If there are worlds that branch like this, the magic formulas I’m currently researching would become quite troublesome.”

We’ve reached the question of whether the many-worlds interpretation itself is correct.

Good. I wanted to ask about other interpretations too, but since he’s probably thinking about ways to leave this world, if I must ask, I should prioritize and start with what I most want to know. I nodded and brought up another question.

“Your Grace. Does Laplace’s demon actually exist?”

At those words, the Duke tilted his head and looked at me. It was naturally a metaphor, and he seemed to understand what I meant. I continued speaking to him.

“According to many-worlds interpretation theory, we cannot directly observe other worlds. Therefore, other worlds become worlds that have almost no relation to us whether they exist or not.”

“That’s right. If Count Everett’s ‘many-worlds interpretation’ is true, then only God should be able to observe all those worlds.”

“What if humans could observe other worlds, excluding the world they stand in?”

“Humans? Huh… ‘Observation’ itself seems to affect the world. Yes, please answer whether I’m right. Is observation equivalent to intervention?”

“…It might be.”

Because time flows the moment you observe. I swallowed those words. The Duke narrowed his eyes in thought, then quickly provided an answer.

“Humans can only see one determined world before their eyes after observing, right? Then the one who can ‘actually’ observe other worlds must be God, not humans. If we were to assume humans could see other worlds, that person would be very unfortunate.”

Before I could ask why, he continued answering in succession.

“But anyway, didn’t we come to the Astral Realm of this space with our astral bodies? We are ‘observing’ other worlds as if borrowing God’s authority. This isn’t our human authority, but merely authority God has lent us.”

“….”

“That’s why magical research must always be done carefully. Connecting the occult with our magical studies is an interesting challenge and my life’s work, but it’s something that shouldn’t be permitted to all mages of our era.”

He began to shift focus from my question to the occult.

I nodded silently. I felt once again that there was a ghost beside me who was no longer alive. Because he was a rare person in noble society, I suddenly recalled the fact that he was a specter from the past.

It’s a victory for many-worlds theory. At least in this aspect. If we explain his living phenomenon with many-worlds interpretation theory, Maria Osterreicheste doesn’t exist in certain worlds, but if you search carefully, she might exist in other worlds. Isn’t that EC Stage 1?

However, in principle, there’s no way to directly observe other worlds.

‘There shouldn’t be.’

But my ability called Extra Chapter makes it possible despite the principle that I shouldn’t have a way to intervene in other worlds.

I met a mage who claims there’s an Astral Realm and performs astral projection. He observes other worlds, albeit limitedly—here, worlds mean the worlds claimed by many-worlds quantum mechanics theory. It’s become completely complicated; there’s no other way to express it. Yes, even if I concede a hundred times that observation methods using astral bodies are possible, Maria’s astral body has clear constraints on ‘travel.’

However, I expanded the range of Maria’s astral body travel. Whether physical or spiritual experience, I was now a complete rule-breaker. My head hurts.

The Duke whistled excitedly and muttered.

“I’d like to visit a world where Ion Forso didn’t happen.”

“….”

“I’ve never actually been there. Astral projection isn’t that easy, you see. There must definitely be a future world where time continued to flow without Ion Forso happening.”

There definitely is. Since I came from there. When I just stood there silently without answering, the Duke tapped his shoulder.

“Since we came to the future with Count Everett’s blood, it’s worth trying once~? Hahaha!”

“….”

Chills run down my spine.

Sorry, but there’s no guarantee we can go to the future. This place and time we’ve arrived at is clearly the ‘present’ for me, and while he thinks we’ve gone to the future, for me it’s merely returning to the present. And applying many-worlds interpretation, it’s not even returning—I’m just continuing to move forward.

“I want to meet myself from this time period.”

“….”

“What am I doing? How many members does the Hermetic Society have now, and did I succeed in establishing the entropy reduction theory I’m organizing, and also…”

“Also?”

“I want to know if humans have become able to use magic.”

“….”

“I’m also curious about what my younger brother and friend are doing with their lives.”

I said nothing. You don’t exist in this world during this time. You are truly a ghost. You’ve come to this world as a specter from the past…

How could I say such words?

“I’m sorry.”

“Huh? For what?”

“….”

“I don’t know what for, but please don’t be sorry at all. To think I’d come to the future like this in my lifetime—I still can’t believe it. When I return, I’ll organize everything I experienced today without missing anything and use it as research material. If I complete a worthwhile paper, I’ll definitely include Count Everett’s name on it. It’s research that wouldn’t have been created without you in the first place!”

The Duke pats my shoulder. I smiled. You don’t move unless I remain in the Extra Chapter world. So I didn’t answer this time either. I couldn’t. Only after a long while did I speak quietly.

“Thank you.”

“Aw~ don’t mention it!”

I let out a small laugh at his playfulness and asked him.

“So how do we get out of here?”

“Hmm. Right. I’ve been thinking about it from earlier until now, and since Count Everett’s friend has his body trapped instead of his soul, we need to find a way for the body to get out. To leave here, we have no choice but to first resonate human mana with natural mana, then create a crack in the natural mana and escape through that gap.”

“Scholars really are different. What do you mean by creating a crack? Do we need to make a black hole or something?”

“The way out is indeed problematic. Just wait a moment…”

Crash—!

Both our heads turned simultaneously toward where the sound came from. The sound came from the southeast of this location, from the direction where we left Elias.

“They seem to be fighting.”

The Duke spoke in a serious voice again. I felt my heart pounding even though I don’t have a heart right now. What I experienced 8 hours ago was still vivid to me. I should go help, even if only with mana. Thinking this, I ran.

The reason I can only help with ‘mana’ is this—since I didn’t use a material plane projection artifact, Elias can’t see me right now. Though it would be weaker than using magic with my body, I can still control mana weakly in this state, so I should be able to provide some assistance. Without moving through mental imagery, I spoke to the Duke running alongside me.

“Your Grace. Now that we know the method, could you create a crack? It will be difficult, but please.”

“Right. I’ll have to try.”

[Rumble…]

I begin to see Elias’s mana shining in the distance. I drew the wand from my mental imagery and aimed it at the rampage. I concentrated mana at its tip. Light burst forth before me.

Crash—!

[Aaaahhh! Ugh…!]

‘Wait.’

It’s going out stronger than I thought? There’s no problem with the power, but Elias would definitely be surprised. The moment I was inwardly startled, Elias’s bewildered face turned toward me. He was definitely looking at the point where the mana came from. A faint voice reached me.

“Luca?”

“….”

I momentarily doubted my cognitive abilities. My head turned slowly.

Even though he shouldn’t be able to see me since I didn’t use a material plane projection artifact, Elias was looking directly into my eyes with his mouth agape. The Duke was also frozen, looking between me and Elias in confusion. Elias stood there dazed for a while, then moved his lips.

“Luca, 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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