How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 462

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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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The distance from Raihenau Monastery to St. Georg Cathedral is quite considerable, but I could tell there were signs of people around – whether they saw the flickering light or were conducting business in nearby buildings. If it were Narke, he would have made sure the light wasn’t visible from outside, so it must be the latter.

‘…Phew.’

I suppose insight and foresight can’t reveal everything like this? Even knowing the reason, I always want to hear the answer. If the person searching for us changes direction and the sound of footsteps on grass echoes through the silence, I couldn’t help but be purely curious whether we could successfully catch the Papal spy from Terminus Yukairya and return home safely. We couldn’t be discovered like this from the second step of saving Haike. It felt like sweat was seeping into the skin under my always dry gloves.

As soon as I thought that, Narke’s face turned pale and he spoke to me through divine power.

―”Haha… If you don’t look into people’s eyes, insight is only half-complete~ Besides.”

Isn’t it more like nonexistent rather than half?

―”Haha.”

Of course, the intuition developed like a unique ability through accumulated big data greatly compensates for low-level insight, and I do trust such intuition and insight. Narke wiped his mouth with his hand and held his breath again. The footsteps grew a little closer. The light from behind stretched westward, then disappeared from our side and stretched eastward again. The monk shone light through the window on the opposite side of the building. White light flashed overhead, turning the tree in front pale. Narke looked at the ash-like tree and transmitted words to my mind without moving his lips once.

―”I can’t always use my abilities. Especially foresight is more troublesome.”

―”Foresight aside. You always use insight on me though.”

―”Sorry. It’s not intentional. …For now.”

Step―

Damn. The monk was circling around to the back of the building. If he went a little further, we’d be caught. Moving little by little to the front of the building would make noise stepping on grass, so what, should we play ring-around-the-rosy? Still, if we had to go, we’d have no choice but to cast sound-dampening magic, but I don’t know if that monk is a mage or not. This is exactly why it would take some time to cast stealth magic and boldly escape like before. Even if we cast stealth magic, our volume remains the same – if the monk steps where I’m sitting, it’s over – and if we walk in that state, the influence we have on our surroundings remains the same. Since it’s night, maybe we could deceive something like grass being pressed down.

‘Right. So it’s better to use stealth magic as a second-best option.’

I raised my index finger to slightly rub my hand against the wall. At that moment, Elias stuck his hand into his pocket and threw his arm far into the distance.

Whoosh― Thud― Thunk―

Three or four stones flew from his hand in succession. He spun his body to the right and quickly threw stones without rest. The sound grew distant like a rabbit stepping on tree branches and jumping far away. There was a sound of fabric rustling as the monk spun around. He shone his lamp in that direction and approached the forest.

I don’t know how long we can buy time. However, Narke exhaled deeply and plopped down in his spot, then looked at Elias with a strange smile. Then Elias ruffled Narke’s hair without permission and acted proud.

“This kind of thing is my specialty, isn’t it.”

“That’s right~”

“So that’s why you were collecting stones…”

Elias nodded vigorously at my words. I only now remembered that he often picked up stones in the book. I had the memory but hadn’t internalized the principle behind that action, so it didn’t immediately apply in situations like this. That might be the difference between knowledge and wisdom.

“There’s a knack to trespassing. Look, situations like this come up where you have to sneak into somewhere, right? Then you have to think that you’ve already been discovered and consider ways to divert attention before entering. Whether you set up magic in advance, pick up stones, or tie strings.”

“I learned something good…”

“Make sure to remember it. That way you can infiltrate even without me.”

“Right.”

I answered soullessly, but it was good information. Narke also seemed pleased as he smiled and said.

“It was good bringing Elias along~”

“I’ll say.”

“Now, we need to decode the cipher.”

Narke pulled us along, cast stealth magic, and headed toward the residential area. Since no one was watching, it was fine to borrow the power of magic for a moment. We found a good spot between widely separated houses that wouldn’t be noticeable when viewed from the main road and sat under the shade of a tree.

“This time it’s a simple cipher. The code is written in a way anyone could easily think of. As you know, even people who aren’t very smart had to be able to decode it and enter…”

Narke cast sound-dampening magic and took out another copy from his chest to examine while speaking.

“Lucas. Remember the titulus of the first painting.”

“Right. Say it quickly. Which number is it.”

Then Elias widened his eyes and leaned his face toward us.

“What are you guys doing? Wow.”

“What’s wow.”

A student with short black hair cut at the back is looking at us, so he seems more like an unknown high school student than Elias, which is constantly bewildering. But it must be the same from Elias’s perspective – we also bleached our hair to light brown. I pushed back Elias who had come uncomfortably close and replied.

“You noticed what this cipher is too.”

“I roughly guess, but it’s interesting how you naturally talk assuming we all know the same thing. Leo does this to me too.”

“…How long did it take Leo to learn your patterns… No. Since you know too, let’s put our heads together. Come on, decode it when the alphabet comes together.”

“Okay!”

“Lucas, the 44th letter of the first painting.”

44th? I chuckled and read the memorized titulus.

“Dæmon proiicitur, Legio cui nomen inhæret. Tum porcos…”

“Stop! S.”

Elias clapped his hands in front of my eyes and interrupted. I was startled without realizing it and widened my eyes. I should count myself so I don’t have to see this guy do this again.

“Haha, good. Then the second painting, 18th letter.”

“Hmm… This is T. The outline is already emerging.”

“Luca, why aren’t you reciting?”

I carefully pushed away Elias’s forehead as he brought his face endlessly close to mine. Narke smiled and answered my question.

“Right~ Next, the third painting. Fifth letter.”

“Easy. M.”

“Next is… the fourth painting, 18th letter.”

“U.”

“The next fifth mural says 0.”

“That mural’s titulus was severely damaged.”

“Perfect timing. Then the sixth painting, first letter.”

“This time it’s also M.”

“The seventh painting is also 0. The eighth painting, 31st letter.”

“Wow, this is… Hmm, C.”

“Then it’s STMUMC. St is obviously Saint… Why give such obvious clues that even an idiot could figure out. They wanted to do business too.”

Elias sneered. Just knowing St makes it obvious that what follows would be a church name. Elias also seems to find ciphers that are solved too easily rather ridiculous. I think the same, but the smugglers at Raihenau Monastery couldn’t have made difficult ciphers for merchants who weren’t scholars. From the monk’s perspective, making complex ciphers might be personally enjoyable, but to communicate with others, they needed to match the level and capacity of those who would solve the problems. Thanks to providing such level-appropriate ciphers, we should also be able to find something soon.

‘…No, wait. Does this really exist? It doesn’t make sense.’

What crazy people would be blinded by money and secretly sell manuscripts and paintings? Are they really monks? Maybe money isn’t the purpose and they’re carrying out some important mission only they know about, but even so, how did they build the underground tunnel?

I can’t be certain of the underground passage’s existence until the very end. We might be taking an unrelated cipher and deciding it’s a smuggling route, and even if there actually was something like a secret space, it might not be an underwater tunnel but a small room where they secretly hand over vegetarian manuscripts and detailed paintings and receive payment. Secret rooms made using mechanical devices actually existed in the past and now, so this was much more realistic. If that happened, Narke and Elias would be disappointed and dejected, but in this situation, that might be okay. I’ll take them out and feed them something delicious to console them. Within my common sense, a situation where both would be greatly disappointed should be right.

‘No wait… Then we’d have to dive underwater to illegally enter the country.’

It was a situation where I should pray that there would please be a secret passage. I should be praying to medieval people who aren’t even my ancestors. Oh, I don’t know. I looked up at the sky, sighed deeply, and fell into thought.

‘So now we need to find a church called MUMC.’

Considering the level of the cipher, MUMC would be a simple acronym, and then for local people, finding out where MUMC is would be as easy as chewing gum. Of course, as an outsider, I naturally don’t know where MUMC is. But if I recall what Narke said earlier, the answer should come soon.

‘He said there’s Raihenau Monastery.’

And also, he said there’s the Cathedral of the Virgin Mary and St. Mark. He also said there are the Cathedrals of Paul and Peter. I understand there are no other important facilities besides those.

It’s not difficult to deduce which of these MUMC is closest to. St. Maria und Markus satisfies STMUM. Is C also an abbreviation for Marco? The side using C is Latin. But German before Martin Luther is no different from English before Shakespeare, and Martin Luther didn’t even exist when this mural was painted. Moreover, we just confirmed that the mural’s titulus was written in Latin. If the cathedral nameplate was also written in Latin, it could be C…

“No.”

I said that and slowly opened my eyes. Narke and Elias were exchanging glances and sitting close together watching me, but when I opened my eyes, they were startled and moved away. I felt embarrassed and muttered.

“Is it fun watching?”

“Hahaha~”

“What’s C. C isn’t an abbreviation for Marco.”

Raihenau Monastery is the representative building of this island, where many people come and go both then and now. The Cathedral of Mary and Mark right next to it is the same. Using an entire building as a smuggling location doesn’t make sense, so some room inside the Cathedral of the Virgin Mary and St. Mark, a specific location would be C, the trading place.

“C in the Cathedral of the Virgin Mary and St. Mark. What’s the last one? Considering the decoder’s level, they definitely wouldn’t have set it up difficultly.”

“Room 3~?”

“That might be it. Or 3rd floor. Or basement level 3. But where would such things be in a cathedral. We need more answers. So… everyone tell me what rank you got in the last Latin exam in your class.”

Even at my sudden command, Narke answered calmly.

“Um, 1st place.”

“I knew you would be. A cardinal would know Latin well.”

“I got 50th place!”

“Amazing… Let’s say you’re also 1st place. You’re 1st place in a different sense.”

Elias probably knew all the answers and wrote them wrong. At least from my reading, he always did that, but I don’t know if he did the same on last year’s Latin exam. Whether he really knew everything and wrote the opposite or not, this guy actually knew to some extent. I carefully leaned against the tree while checking if anyone else was passing by and muttered.

“Well, I got everything wrong and came in 3rd place, so I’m out. You two think about it well.”

“Haha, if you get everything wrong, you don’t get 3rd place. Why are you backing out~ You know the words.”

“Just you guys do it.”

“Luca, I think he’s sulking because we were observing him.”

As if. I was dumbfounded by those words and chuckled as I answered.

“Right, so you guys do it…”

“Things starting with C~ What could there be. Choir, pillars, crypt, clerestory, bell tower…”

“Crypt seems most likely. It’s a basement.”

Narke and Elias really started having a conversation between themselves. I listened to their conversation and got up when Narke started to rise from his spot. Narke cast sound-dampening magic and still whispered.

“Now the problem is we have to go to the monastery where monks are concentrated and stationed. The Cathedral of the Virgin Mary and St. Mark is right next to the monastery, so we have to be very careful.”

“So we have to go through that ordeal again…”

“Right.”

Narke answered resolutely. Elias began picking up stones again. However, seeing that he didn’t pick up as many as before, it seemed he thought there were limits to using stones as a distraction. That made me even more anxious for no reason.

We quietly cast concealment magic and ran. Occasionally when monks appeared, we stood still where we had been running to avoid making any wind. We prayed they wouldn’t come near us, and once when it was dangerous, Elias threw a stone in the opposite direction to divert attention, and we stealthily escaped in the gap and ran again. Like that, when about 30 minutes had passed, we gathered in front of the dimly lit monastery. Elias carefully took out wire from his clutch again and approached the entrance of the Cathedral of the Virgin Mary and St. Mark. However, here we only needed to remove the wooden block hanging on the door handle, which made our movements more conspicuous.

‘Wow, this… makes me nervous.’

The entrance to the Cathedral of the Virgin Mary and St. Mark was located directly facing the monastery. That meant they could see us from inside the monastery too. Then Elias tapped our shoulders and ran past the monastery toward the south of the island. I looked at Narke with a face asking what he was doing, but Narke seemed not to know either.

Screech— Peep peep peep…

Bird sounds chirping could be heard from far away.

‘What’s that.’

It sounded very much like a bird, but since we knew the situation, we realized that sound was most likely Elias’s doing. I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity. I quickly pulled out the wooden block and opened the door, pushing Narke inside. Not long after, Elias came running. I immediately closed the cathedral door in case someone might see and walked quickly inside. Then I asked Narke.

“Where are crypts usually located?”

“Below the apse? Well, it differs from church to church.”

Unable to even light a fire, only darkness had settled in this cathedral, and we had to find the way to enter the crypt from here.

“This church is a building that was rebuilt after burning down before. We’ll have to hope the fire didn’t spread to the underground passages.”

“They might have blocked the passages when rebuilding.”

“Right. But since it was rebuilt in the 11th century, there’s still hope.”

Narke approached where the apse was located. He carefully felt along the pillars and examined the floor and walls, but unable to find any particular door, he came back toward the dais where we were.

“I’ll go check the back.”

“Go ahead.”

While Narke searched for an entrance leading underground, I kept watch on the monastery outside and stayed alert. Even after a long time, Narke seemed unable to find any particular stairs and just kept wandering around various places. Then he came near the dais again.

“There is a door leading underground over there, but I don’t like it. No matter how I think about it, here in front of the dais feels the best, but why~”

“…It feels good…”

Well, I don’t know. But this spot is definitely a C too. I was currently in front of the dais and in front of the congregation seating, that is, between the two, and this spot was where the medieval choir stood. I slowly but firmly stomped my feet, starting to look for evidence to support Narke’s words. Thud, thud… With each step I took, a not very clear sound rang out. After doing this for twenty steps, I began to worry that the vibrations alone might make the monastery come charging over here.

Thump—

I stopped dead at the spot where a different sound than before had echoed. Instantly my eyes met with Narke’s and Elias’s. Round eyes shone in the darkness. Elias hurriedly pushed the altar and swept away the carpet. Slightly grooved wood occupied the floor. Elias drew his wand and held it up.

The place where the choir stands, and the underground crypt. Two C’s.

“…”

Cold wind surged up from the black stone chamber like a manhole. Elias shone light with his wand to look, then carefully climbed down the iron ladder. I also followed behind him. Narke, who came down last while using magic to arrange the altar position and carpet, said admiringly.

“This isn’t the basement that’s normally used. The real basement is next to this, and here is…”

“A specially made place. Right.”

Why does this really exist? I could understand up to the room, but if a passage really appeared from here, I’d faint. However, as soon as I thought that, Elias discovered an elaborate stone door at the end of the corridor—it seemed like a more modern door than expected—and when we went down there, an endlessly long passage spread out before us.

“…”

“Lucas should faint~”

I stood there dumbfounded, pressing my neck in disbelief. This really exists? A passage leading to the mainland? Even though we had directly decoded the cipher up to this point, this was unbelievable. But whether I believed it or not, the passage actually existed, and the door seemed to have been replaced relatively recently too.

‘This is crazy.’

“Yes~ Yaaaaa~”

Elias cast a sound-dampening spell and ran shouting into the unlit corridor. Before I could collect my wits, Narke led me inside. He properly closed the stone door and gathered light at the tip of his wand, walking slowly.

“I can see why they made a passage here. If they had made it at St. George Cathedral earlier, it’s the first place people coming from Constance would reach, so there wouldn’t be time to close the passage~”

“Right… So they made and hid the passage in a building right next to the monastery, which is the main body of this island. But why is it so damp?”

To my question, Elias, who was walking ahead, answered cheerfully.

“Hey, beyond this plaster is the lake~ It’s normal for it to be damp.”

“It doesn’t seem normal.”

I muttered with a frown. There was too much moisture. Had it not been used for too long and wasn’t properly maintained? No, could we say it hadn’t been used until recently? They had changed the door. The carpet lifted easily as if it had been regularly removed for cleaning, not stuck to the floor, and there wasn’t much dust between either. On the way down here, there were no spider webs or saturation of dust either. Narke also tapped the wall and nodded after hearing the clear ringing sound.

“It doesn’t seem to be directly the lake. There seems to be a thin cavity beyond and then the lake after that. Why did they make the passage with this structure?”

“Maybe to escape into the cavity if the passage was discovered? Or to take refuge there since water might leak in.”

“Hmm… That makes sense.”

Well, I was just throwing out ideas. I touched the wall. Whether it was for entering the cavity or for some other purpose, several bricks in the passage wall were missing at regular intervals.

We walked like that for 30 minutes. What was Leo doing now, what were Julia and Ulrike doing—we concluded they were probably sleeping—how was the Theravada Buddhism study group curriculum going, and we walked while arguing whether everyone’s newly changed hair colors suited them or not. I had curled my hair slightly, and that topic also came up for discussion. Elias said I was being too stereotypically Italian, but Narke just giggled. Then, cold wind blew in from behind.

Whooo—…

A chilling wind sound came from behind. Elias glanced back and put his arm on my shoulder.

“Luca, I’m cold.”

“What to do… Want my robe?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

While we were having this trivial conversation, Narke also looked back. It wasn’t because of us. Despite saying it felt good earlier, he stopped dead in his tracks and looked quietly behind with a worried face. An ominous feeling surged in me and Elias too, so we looked where he was looking. Then when we turned our heads back toward Narke, what we saw was Narke with widened eyes and an open mouth. Elias’s sharp intake of breath could be heard.

“Gasp.”

Splash—…

“…”

I gradually lowered the light gathered at the tip of my wand. The floor turned black unlike before. The sound of water was getting increasingly fierce. So right now…

“This is fucking crazy…!”

Lake water was filling the passage!

Crash—

Water that had been rushing in forming puddles up to boot heel height curved up the distant wall and crashed down. Water surged and rushed toward us. Narke grabbed my wrist with a pale face and prepared to run. Elias looked at the black water filling in from both sides of the path we had come with a soulless face and shouted like a machine gun.

“It really was about drowning! That pig mural was telling us not to enter because we’d drown!”

Is this Egypt? There was no time for that. My leg that hadn’t fully healed wasn’t something to worry about right now either. Elias hesitated while looking at the wave approaching with its mouth wide open from far away. I firmly grabbed Elias’s shirt collar and ran at full speed while shouting at the top of my lungs.

“Run! To the Swiss border!”

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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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