How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 450

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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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“I still can’t believe it.”

Leo whispered with his head buried. I raised one eyebrow to express my confusion. As if our desire for him to continue had been conveyed, he immediately muttered.

“You’re alive. And I am too. Clearly, the building collapsed and…”

“…”

“Count Rothenhan…”

Leo spoke haltingly, as if trying to remember something he couldn’t recall. I looked over the bandages wrapped around his arm and head, stood up from my seat, and patted his back.

“You need to sleep more. Rest.”

“No, no.”

Leo urgently raised his head and grabbed my arm. He looked at Ulrike and Cheringen, then looked back at me. His eyes still lacked a sense of reality. He buried himself in the blanket and closed his eyes.

“Let’s stay together just a little longer. Just until I fall asleep…”

“…”

I shrugged and exchanged glances with my friends. Before long, Cheringen gestured toward Leo and said.

“He’s out.”

“…Right. I guess the tension has finally worn off.”

I drew the curtains for Leo, who had fallen back asleep, and asked the nurse.

“How is his condition?”

“He has a fractured right arm and a scalp laceration. He needs to rest due to a mild concussion.”

“When will he be able to be discharged?”

“Discharge is possible anytime, but he absolutely must rest for a week. We’ve already notified the Union, and though it may change, I heard it was decided he’ll return the Wednesday after Easter.”

“Good. That worked out well.”

We’ll be returning to a five-person system excluding Haike and Leo. It didn’t really work out well. Though his condition is better than mine, if a mage injured his arm… I narrowed my brow, stroked my chin, and said to my friends.

“Since his arm is fractured, he won’t be able to do Union activities for a while. Even when he returns, he’ll probably only be able to do paperwork.”

“With his right arm, will he even be able to do paperwork…?”

“He’ll manage somehow. That guy will insist on practicing waving his wand with his left arm. We need to throw him some work so he can’t think about other things.”

While Ulrike made a puzzled expression at those words, Cheringen said thoughtfully.

“You know Leo well.”

“I have to…”

When I narrowed my eyes and trailed off, Cheringen burst into laughter.

“Hahaha! So isn’t it about time you stopped training with Leo? It seems like the time has come for intensive training with me.”

“Let’s train together when he returns. But if this guy can’t be discharged… we’ll have to go by ourselves. Let’s pick magnolias in Munich and go to Luise’s manor. Or would you rather do it the other way around?”

Ulrike looked down at Leo, thought for a moment, then snapped her fingers.

“The other way would be better. Since Haike’s infirmary is in Munich… I want to bring him plants that are as undamaged as possible.”

“You’re going to stick the magnolia branches in soil anyway.”

“Still. If Leo continues in this state, it seems like he won’t be able to help us right away.”

“Right, then we’ll take the train again this time…”

“No!”

‘Huh?’

Ulrike turned pale in an instant and waved her hands. She continued with an awkward smile.

“No more trains, now…”

Looking at Cheringen’s face, he too was wearing a subtle smile similar to Ulrike’s. I intuited the reason and muttered while turning my gaze elsewhere.

“I’d like to hear how you got there.”

“Right? I’ll tell you when we gather everyone and go to my house. It’s the first time I’m bringing our team members since I invited Haike once!”

“Oh, right, you had invited Haike before.”

“Of course. We used to visit each other back and forth.”

At those words, Cheringen smiled and spoke to Ulrike.

“That must have been fun.”

For a moment, I thought it was fortunate.

This team consists only of people who aren’t particularly interested in getting close to each other. Except for Ulrike and Haike alone.

There’s no reason to put up walls with everyone, but there’s also no need to become close friends with everyone when it comes to work. It would be nice to become friends, but our team is already all school friends anyway. So there’s no reason to hope for more than that—everyone except Ulrike and Haike thinks that way. If Ulrike hadn’t been there, we would have all conducted team activities with attitudes no different from when we were doing politics. Even if Haike wouldn’t complain about such behavior from us, he would have learned from watching us how he should live his life, and while I, not wanting Haike to lose a proper school life, wouldn’t have neglected him, I would have repeatedly felt that it was too much for me alone to create a school-like atmosphere.

Ulrike, who had finished her conversation with Cheringen with a smile, stroked the bottle in her hand. She must have thought of Haike. She looked at the flowering tree outside the window and said quietly.

“Haike said he wants to go to the Ottoman Empire.”

“Why there?”

“He said he wants to photograph Islamic temples. He said the Empire’s mosques are incomparably more magnificent than what we see in textbooks. He wants to capture the grandeur of temples touched by sunlight.”

“…”

“Actually, he said that’s all he knows, so if he goes and sees it directly, wouldn’t he be able to feel more? If he sees and brings back more, wouldn’t he be able to capture more of the world in his photographs? …That’s what he said.”

It would have been better to hear this directly from Haike. However, it was fortunate enough that Haike didn’t keep these words only in his heart, and that I could hear about Haike’s thoughts through a friend. If I think about what kind of person Haike was before, it’s certain we wouldn’t have been able to know even this much.

I slowly nodded. Thanks to Ulrike, our team isn’t rigid. Although there’s no one in this team that Ulrike was close friends with from before—though he got along reasonably well with Leo and Julia, who were fellow 3rd Education Institute alumni and top students, Ulrike’s childhood close friends were separate and they would all be in the school’s cadet corps—even if he feels somewhat unfamiliar with our team in his own way, he wanted to become close with us. He kindly allowed us opportunities to become intimate. That was a talent that no one else on our team had, only Ulrike possessed. Ulrike is different from the five of us who had to become adults since our 3rd Education Institute days, and we—at least I, who want my friends to live as their age—owed a debt to such an Ulrike.

“Are you sleeping~?”

A hearty voice was heard from the doorway. Elias, smiling brightly with a healthy complexion, looked at each of the friends one by one, then ran to me and hugged me.

“Oh my, our Luca is alive!”

“Of course.”

I smiled and stroked Elias’s long hair at the back with my hand. The white hair that Elias insists is blonde scattered between my fingers. The laughter from Elias, who had been smiling with his chin on my shoulder, subsided. He muttered.

“I have no memory at all after meeting Ainsiedel. So…”

“…”

“When I opened my eyes here, I thought everything was over. You weren’t there either, and my body felt strangely light, so… I was in despair.”

I slowly nodded to signal that I was listening. Elias pulled away abruptly, grabbed my shoulders, and grinned.

“The ceiling was too familiar~? That’s how I knew!”

“Knew what?”

“That you had succeeded.”

I smiled at those words. Then I looked at Ulrike and Cheringen beside me and continued.

“It wasn’t just me who succeeded, it was much easier because Luise and Julia were there. Without those two, we might still be there now.”

Elias smiled silently and hugged Cheringen—Cheringen smiled slightly and stroked Elias’s back—then quickly separated and patted Ulrike’s shoulder. When Ulrike smiled brightly, Elias stared at him, then shrugged and stepped back. Elias was about to approach the bed where Leo was sleeping when he pointed at my eyes and asked.

“Why is one of your eyes bloodshot?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t affect its function. More importantly, traces of blood being drawn?”

“There are some. Just one on the right arm. What about you?”

“…I don’t have any. Nothing was implanted in your body, right?”

“Nothing like that, they said. My magical power is completely normal too.”

“…”

Right. This much is fortunate. Elias brought his face close to Leo’s, then suddenly turned his head toward me as if remembering something.

“Luca, you just re-bandaged your head and snuck out! They told me to bring you back.”

“Ah, I’ll go later. I came because I wanted to say hello to Leo.”

“That’s why I came too. Hey— wake up.”

Elias pinched Leo’s cheek with his finger and pulled it. Leo frowned and buried his face in the pillow. Elias was silent for a while, carefully touching the bandage on Leo’s forehead, then quickly left the room to get a pen. I looked at the pen and asked.

“What’s that for?”

“What do you think?”

Elias licked his lips with his tongue and began writing something on Leo’s forehead bandage. Cheringen crossed his arms, looked at them, and raised an eyebrow. Look at him not stopping it. Like Ulrike, I watched nervously and put my hand on Elias’s shoulder.

“You should write that kind of thing on his arm instead…”

“Hey, it’s fine~”

“What’s fine?”

Leo responded to Elias’s words in a sleepy voice.

“Oops, I woke him up.”

“Of course you would?”

Leo naturally offered his right arm to Elias. Elias just as naturally pushed Leo’s arm away and continued writing something on the forehead bandage.

[Departure amid new love and new sounds!]

It was exactly a line from a poem he would read. When Elias lifted the pen, Leo slightly wrinkled his brow and said.

“What’s the point if I can’t see it? Lucas, what did Elias just write?”

“No, Luca! Don’t tell him!”

“Departure amid new love and new sounds.”

“Huh.”

Elias made a strange sound. Leo, having heard the answer from me, buried his head deep in the pillow again and let out a breath close to a sigh as he said.

“Rimbaud… Since when have you been reading Rimbaud. And I’m going to unwrap these bandages now.”

“I read it often? You wrote it well, so don’t throw it away and keep it as a family heirloom.”

Even at Elias’s retort, Leo only kept his eyes closed. Leo muttered in that state.

“I’m glad you’re healthy.”

“….”

“…All of you, really.”

Leo moved his dry lips and continued speaking. We just watched him silently without saying anything. There wasn’t anyone who didn’t understand what kind of feelings he must have.

Elias slammed his head hard into Leo’s chest. Leo, who had been closing his eyes and suddenly got struck like lightning, irritably pushed him away and leaned against the headboard with a face completely awakened from sleep. He asked me while trying his best to push away Elias who was clinging to him.

“Where’s Narke?”

“Still….”

“He’s here.”

We turned our heads at the voice heard from behind. Narke, wearing a clean Eschede uniform, stood at the entrance with a pale face. He must have come over after hearing the news from Prussia. His face was much darker with gloom rather than surprise. Leo looked at such Narke in silence before opening his mouth.

“It’s nice to meet like this.”

“….”

“I have something to say to Lucas first, so guys. Could you come in a little later?”

Then the friends looked back and forth between me and Leo before going outside. Ulrike was still looking at us with somewhat worried eyes. After all the friends left, I plopped down in the seat next to him and gave Leo a look. Leo said while unwrapping and folding the bandage around his forehead.

“What happened to your leg?”

“….”

Amazing observation skills. No one has noticed since I came here.

The flow of magical power he felt must have been a little different. Or maybe the state of the core was strange, or both. I answered cleanly as it was.

“Vitriol is forming my leg.”

“…What happened.”

Leo said while pressing his eyes tightly and lowering his head. He also knew that vitriol forming the leg meant I couldn’t walk without vitriol. I answered calmly.

“I almost died, and since I couldn’t die, I endured until the very end. That’s how this happened.”

“….”

“I couldn’t let the life you gave me go to waste.”

Leo slowly raised his head. His sky-blue eyes soaked in anxiety were covered by a faint smile.

“It’s an honor that you had that thought in such a critical moment.”

“Geez….”

I shrugged my shoulders and let out a hollow laugh. Then Leo pointed at my eyes as if it wasn’t over yet and asked.

“Why are your eyes like that.”

“They touched water.”

“Just now?”

“No.”

“Eyes don’t get this bloodshot from touching water a while ago.”

I pretended not to know and stretched my mouth, shrugging my shoulders once again. Leo looked at my leg with a resigned face.

“The vitriol in your leg, you can’t remove it by yourself, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll have to call Narke. After purifying the vitriol with divine power, go downstairs and ask the doctor to treat the damage to your leg. The faster the recovery, the better.”

I nodded and got up from my seat. No, I tried to.

Leo grabbed my jacket and brought our faces close, then inhaled. Soon he stared piercingly and tilted his head.

“Alcohol?”

“….”

“Let’s hear the details later.”

What a nose, this guy. At this rate, he’ll even figure out what kind of whiskey Ainsiedel spilled. I shook my head from side to side and went outside to bring Narke in.

Narke, seeing us, raised the corners of his mouth slightly.

“…Leo. Lucas.”

“Hello.”

At Leo’s brief greeting, Narke pondered what to say before answering awkwardly.

“I’m glad to see you’re alive.”

“Me too. It’s nothing else, but could you treat Lucas’s leg?”

“Ah, of course. I was thinking I should do that too.”

Narke gestured with his hand. It’s not even surprising anymore that he had such thoughts without being told. I rolled up my pants and showed my left leg. Leo and Narke simultaneously frowned at the skin that had turned black and become mushy like mud. To be honest, I frowned too. It couldn’t be helped since this was the first time I was directly seeing what condition it was in.

Narke took off his gloves and placed his hand on the skin while saying.

―…Stretch out your hand, and in your holy name accomplish healing and signs and miracles.

He repeated the same incantation three or four times and chanted purification spells together. Gradually the skin regained its original color. After all the murky color was gone, Narke finally chanted a spell for recovery.

―O God. Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me.

After that, Narke let go of my leg, so I briefly stepped on the ground. Although the bone hurt if I put too much strength into it, I could walk. Narke said worriedly.

“It must be difficult to walk.”

“Is that so? It’s not really a problem. It’s much better than at first.”

“….”

Nothing changes by continuing bad stories. I felt the atmosphere becoming increasingly depressed and changed the subject.

“Ah, I’ll also take sick leave for a few days. I won’t be able to use magic in this state anyway.”

“That’s not a good thing….”

“It means I can keep you from being bored until I get better. Think of it positively.”

Leo listened with a face like he was hearing nonsense and looked at Narke. Narke was also looking at him, knowing that Leo would say something to him. Leo’s quiet voice flowed through the infirmary.

“Narke. Did you know today’s events would happen?”

Narke’s brow furrowed. He moved his lips, then prepared himself mentally before speaking.

“I should be honest.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“I wasn’t completely unaware.”

“….”

The atmosphere sank further. I looked at Narke’s face and then looked at Leo. Leo was looking at Narke calmly. Narke continued speaking quietly.

“I don’t deliberately look at the future often. Because I don’t want to know somehow. But….”

“….”

“I’m sorry. This was something that couldn’t be avoided.”

“I suppose so. How much could we change.”

Leo answered slowly while pressing his brow. Whether from the medicine or for some reason, I felt resigned. Narke still said with a dark face and lowered voice.

“There are things that don’t change no matter how hard you try. To avoid all of this….”

Even after waiting, the words didn’t continue. Narke ended with an apology instead of what he originally intended to say.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

Leo asked quietly with a face that was neither pressing nor questioning. When an answer didn’t come right away, Leo continued.

“It’s something that already happened, so what can we do. Everyone came back. We also prepared the foundation to bring back Haike.”

Leo said while looking at midair and then threw off the blanket.

“Let’s get ready to leave. Luise said we should all go to her house together.”

* * *

“He’s really going through with getting discharged.”

4 hours later, having finished the rest of our treatment, we left the hospital and gathered at Munich Residenz. Elias looked at Leo with wonder. Ulrike smiled brightly as if anything was fine and hit Leo’s back, then said playfully.

“You wanted to go to our house that badly~?”

“Does it work that way. The doctor was going that way too, so it was okay and I came out early.”

“Right, you’re going to recuperate at our house for two days. You too, Lucas. And Leo, we’ll get magnolia branches on the way back, so help me then.”

“Of course.”

Leo answered with a smile.

Having simply packed our things, we all came out to the courtyard of Munich Residenz and stood in front of the warp point. The midday sunlight beat down on our heads. Ulrike spun around and looked over the five of us while saying.

“Now, guys. Listen well. We’re going to stop by the Prussia border checkpoint and then warp directly to Kleist estate. No carriage. Absolutely not. Got it?”

Then Elias, who originally hated carriages—Imperial carriages—replied briefly.

“That sounds good.”

“Good? That’s a relief. And here’s the key point from now on. We’re going to go straight to the laboratory at the end of the 3rd floor of the manor without greeting our mother and the caretaker. I’ll warp all of us together.”

“Hm?”

I made eye contact with my friends. This was news to everyone. Having a laboratory at home was common enough so it wasn’t surprising, but not meeting Mother? At least he should tell the caretaker. As I stood there flustered, Ulrike looked at me and said resolutely.

“Lucas said he’d make sugar candy specially for us.”

“…I didn’t say specially. And what does that have to do with anything?”

“I want to make it as a surprise gift for our mother and family members! Tell me the recipe.”

“…”

First of all, I’m not sure how special it would be just adding sodium bicarbonate to sugar—wouldn’t it just taste like sugar?—and I’m not sure if Mother would even like candy made from boiled sugar…

But his will seemed so firm that we couldn’t say anything back. More precisely, we wanted to say something back, but we were swept up by Ulrike’s urgency and had to quickly move to the Prussian Border Checkpoint.

And so, we warped to some unknown mansion’s venue without even knowing where we were, and secretly ran into the mansion’s rear entrance before anyone could spot us. Ulrike, who belatedly noticed I couldn’t run, picked me up and ran inside.

‘…If we were going to do this, we should have warped closer to the back gate…’

I don’t know. We couldn’t get our bearings due to Ulrike’s quick actions—since we had been in the Munich Residenz courtyard just 10 minutes ago—and successfully picked the laboratory door lock and entered. Ulrike carefully set me down and shouted.

“Now, Lucas! Tell me the ingredients!”

“Um, first a plate, foil. And sugar… sodium bicarbonate. Various measuring spoons.”

The alcohol lamp was right in front of us. Ulrike dragged Narke over and started opening the laboratory cabinets. Leo, who was still standing there with a bewildered expression, asked me.

“What are you making that needs sodium bicarbonate?”

“Caramel. Or candy.”

“You use sodium bicarbonate to make caramel candy? Why bother?”

“You could use it. Anyway, you need to heat the sodium bicarbonate above 80 degrees to release carbon dioxide.”

“…Well, whatever… Go ahead. But then there wouldn’t be much difference except for the bubbles. Is there a taste difference?”

“Actually, I don’t know that either.”

I’d have to be crazy about food to know that… Food is so far outside my area of interest that I don’t really know. I’m the type who desperately wishes humans could live without eating food, so I didn’t want to know about taste differences in food. Of course, having a finicky palate was a separate matter, so I couldn’t eat just anything, but perhaps because of that, or because I lacked useless curiosity, fortunately I never had the chance to learn the difference between dalgona and hardened boiled sugar lumps. I don’t particularly want to know such things in the future either.

“Here, Lucas~”

Narke set down a bottle of sodium bicarbonate and a bag of sugar in front of me and smiled. Since Ulrike brought me gloves, I lost the will to argue further and obediently put on the lab coat and gloves. Then I took a deep breath.

As I closed my eyes and exhaled, silence fell. These guys were definitely all watching me. When I opened my eyes and looked at my friends, my expectation was indeed correct. Cheringen, who glanced at Elias watching with bright eyes, burst into laughter and asked.

“What’s so serious that you need to be this solemn?”

“I need to be solemn.”

For personal reasons, I need to be solemn.

Personally, I don’t think it’s very desirable, but considering my age, hometown, workplace location, living environment, appetite, and everything else combined, I rarely had occasion to cook for myself. Of course, I could make soup with ingredients from retort packs, but anyway, I didn’t want to live as someone who couldn’t even handle meals alone, so I tried, but apparently there really is such a thing as talent even for survival cooking. Since both the process and results weren’t very good, I couldn’t help but be nervous.

‘Still, this seems doable.’

First of all, this is hardly what you’d call cooking. I know well that I’m still young with blood not yet dried in my head, but still, at this age not being able to boil sugar by myself would be ridiculous—so I shouldn’t think about what to do if I couldn’t boil it—. I took a deep breath and flipped the torch lever up to ignite it. I was grateful it wasn’t an induction cooktop. Thanks to the science experiments I’d been trained in through elementary, middle, and high school, lighting an alcohol lamp was a piece of cake. Then Ulrike carefully placed her hand on my shoulder.

“Should we go to the gas stove for this? The alcohol lamp can only adjust the flame with the tripod height, so it might be uncomfortable for you.”

“Would it be easier if I could adjust the flame with a lever?”

“Isn’t that obvious? If it’s not uncomfortable, let’s just do it here! We might get caught if we go to the kitchen.”

Right. It sounded plausible for a moment, but that’s nonsense. Ulrike believes we must adjust the flame. However, when the option of flame control becomes available, people unfamiliar with cooking and lacking talent end up ruining everything because the sequence gets tangled while trying to handle multiple things simultaneously. I know well enough that fire is very important, but there’s an order to things. If you have no talent for flame control, boldly give up and work on other areas. I shook my head.

“Right. I already lit it anyway.”

“…”

I could feel Leo narrowing his brow and looking at me with suspicious eyes. I gave him a meaningful look to convey trust. I don’t know what basis that guy has for disparaging me like that when he’s never even seen me make miso soup that turned into the Han River about a year ago, but I think I can overturn that baseless harsh criticism today.

I showed Leo, who completely failed to understand my meaningful look and only frowned more, the measuring spoon and gestured toward the sugar bag Elias was holding. Elias grinned and placed the sugar in front of me. I swallowed my saliva and looked at my friends standing in a circle around the table as I spoke.

“Now, let’s begin.”

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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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