How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 470

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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 discovered for the first time today that we have deep knowledge in astronomy. That’s because we don’t have deep knowledge at all.

‘Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune is something even middle schoolers know! And now you’re saying it’s perfect when even middle schoolers know this?’

However, it was already a done deal. I quickly went to stand beside him, worried that the servant might come outside, and pulled one side of my robe back over my shoulder to avoid looking suspicious. Fortunately, I was wearing ordinary clothes underneath—Jesuit priests don’t strictly wear religious habits—.

“Is anyone there!”

Elias continues knocking on the door even in this situation. Now, who will come out first.

The landlord?

That’s unlikely under normal circumstances. The first to come out is always a servant.

I cast a cognitive disruption spell to blur mine and Elias’s faces. I looked back to see only an empty alley greeting me. Narke had disappeared somewhere in no time. Then the heavy iron door slowly opened.

“Who are you?”

A neatly dressed servant looked at us with puzzlement. Elias, having started this, naturally looked at me. I was grateful that he hadn’t jumped from the neighboring rooftop to the eaves or dug a tunnel, and I was also grateful that he wasn’t saying anything random right now, but it was truly absurd that he was leaving the improvisation to me. I cleared my throat and smiled gently to make the best impression possible.

Damn, what should I say now. Then I recalled a phrase that flashed in my mind, something I had seen on the advertisement page of the academic journal earlier.

“Is this where ‘Effemeridi astronomiche calcolate al mezzogiorno tempo vero nel meridiano di Roma ad uso della Specola Caetani’ is published? I heard this historic periodical was recently republished.”

What a ridiculously long name. If I didn’t have this memory, I would have had to openly flip through the academic journal by now. The servant raised his eyebrows slightly upon hearing that long name and replied.

“That’s correct, but…”

Correct, but so what do you want me to do about it. That’s what he wanted to say.

What I’m about to say now is the real deal. However, my Italian skills were critically poor, making it difficult to understand what kind of publication this was.

But I couldn’t back down here. There was still hope. To be honest, for Europeans to learn other European languages isn’t that difficult if accompanied by a certain amount of effort. If you properly learn Latin and ancient Greek, you even learn the etymology, making learning much easier, and fortunately both were required courses at the gymnasium.

Effemeridi, its similar pronunciation to the German Ephemeride couldn’t be a coincidence. Astronomiche was also obvious what it meant, and so was calcolate. Meridiano also brought to mind meridian. Since Ephemeride means ephemeris and meridian means meridian, could this publication be an astronomical ephemeris calculated on the Roman meridian for use at the Caetani Observatory? I hoped my guess was correct. When I didn’t answer immediately, Elias started to open his mouth. I grabbed his arm to stop him and said.

“That ephemeris, you see, I’ve always found it quite fascinating. It was an ephemeris I couldn’t use where I lived, but I’ve long hoped that if I ever got to visit Rome, I could observe the planets listed for the day of my travel.”

The servant nodded with a face that didn’t quite understand. A moment of relief settled in my chest. Good, success. Even without knowing Italian, I didn’t babble nonsense like ‘I read an article from that publication with great interest.’ Sensing that more explanation was needed, I narrowed my eyes to create a friendly impression.

“I’m late with introductions. I’m a first-year philosophy student at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. So is this friend.”

Philosophy? Elias looks at me with a surprised face. He knows one thing but not two. Can’t you predict what kind of spectacle would unfold if I said we majored in natural sciences here? The servant might be one thing. When we meet a scholar, if that scholar sees us as natural science students, it becomes quite troublesome. The best thing would be to escape before meeting any scholars.

“Studying philosophy got me interested in astronomy, and I was wondering if I could meet the people who compile this ephemeris here. I know you don’t lend telescopes for observing planets to first-time visitors, but I don’t even expect that much. I wanted to check the academic journals and ephemerides published here, but I couldn’t find complete collections in any library.”

I spoke mixing in German, and since the servant knew I was from Switzerland, he didn’t seem to find it particularly strange and just nodded.

“I see. But what could a philosophy department learn here?”

“Of course there is. The universe and philosophy are connected. If we turn our eyes away from ourselves and think from a macroscopic perspective, philosophy is also an attempt to understand the world around us, that is, the universe. And aren’t we beings born from the universe? Looking at the universe is, in a way, an opportunity to understand myself and humanity. It’s about generalizing insights into phenomena. Actually, I’m planning to additionally register for an astronomy major next semester…”

The servant looked at me with a face that had closed his ears before even hearing my entire speech. Then he suddenly asked.

“Non-mage?”

“Yes.”

Then he turned his body to make space for us to enter. If I had answered that we were mages, he would have temporarily turned off the barrier or fitted us with special artifacts to temporarily permit entry. Since we entered secretly using Narke’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith exclusive artifact, we could also exit secretly when leaving.

We passed through the dark corridor of the façade and entered a huge courtyard flooded with sunlight. He headed toward another garden beyond that, leading us to a place right next to the back gate.

“This building is used as the conference venue. It’s a place where outsiders can come and go. However, if you wander around other floors, you’ll be kicked out immediately, so please stay only on this floor.”

“Thank you. Does that arcade lead to the back gate?”

“Yes.”

He answered briefly and stood in front of the reception room.

“The conference publications are in this study. This is as far as we can show outsiders.”

“Thank you. We’ll look around and leave through the back gate at an appropriate time… Ah.”

At my voice, the servant turned around.

“When do the scholars here come? I know this isn’t just headquarters where they only come on conference days.”

* * *

The scholars were on the upper floor. Really. We were positioned with the possibility of facing each other with just one ceiling between us. We had to escape to another location in this manor before they discovered me and Elias. Because what I could really say was nothing but Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune. My astronomical knowledge remained at the level of high school earth science 1, and at most it was only at the level of popular science books crammed into memory as I read them, and crucially, I didn’t know how far astronomy was taught in this world and this era, so I had to keep my mouth shut.

And actually, it wasn’t time to worry about scholars appearing.

“…”

Elias and I looked at the young servant standing guard in front of the door. He was a different servant from earlier, who had come to this spot after hearing a request from the servant who had opened the door and was watching over us. Still, since it was our first meeting, he seemed worried that we might cross into unauthorized areas and ransack the manor.

“Ahem.”

Elias sat crookedly on the sofa and looked at him. We couldn’t leave with that person standing guard. Elias, who had been alternately looking at the academic journal and the servant, waved his hand.

“Excuse me.”

“Yes, please speak.”

“Could you brew us a cup of coffee?”

“…”

The servant went outside with an annoyed face. I had numerous thoughts about this situation and asked with a frown.

“You’re not planning to leave now, are you?”

“Right. No. If I ask for tea and then run, it’s too obvious.”

“You know well.”

“Have I been doing this for just a day or two?”

Elias said this while leaning toward me sitting across the table.

“Luca. We can’t just quietly flip through books. We need to have a scholarly conversation between ourselves. We’re students passionate enough to sneak into a manor with an observatory.”

“Right, we should.”

“If you just throw me good setups, I’ll handle it myself.”

I looked into Elias’s eyes and nodded. Handle it yourself, that sounds good. We’ve come this far, so he won’t just charge ahead recklessly.

I stretched my stiff body and said.

“Where did Narke go?”

“Don’t worry about him. He’ll be somewhere taking care of himself.”

The moment our whispering ended, the door opened. The servant set coffee in front of us and stood by the door again. Elias clapped his hands.

“Oh, great. Thank you.”

He said if I just threw good setups, he’d handle it himself. It was time to throw well. We couldn’t keep being monitored and sitting in this spot. I turned pages and said.

“No matter how I think about it, I find Kepler’s third law truly fascinating. What do you think?”

Elias almost spilled coffee from his mouth. I don’t know if it was because I called him ‘you’ formally or because I was now talking about something high schoolers learn.

“Well, fascinating might be too much. It’s just so-so. But isn’t this something you learn in gym… I mean, high school.”

“I just remembered because they’re using the third law here to calculate planetary velocities.”

“Is it okay for the conference journal level to be that basic…”

Since Elias was giggling, I quickly leaned forward. You’re playing along to help me respond, right? Can you understand everything written here? I whispered like that, and Elias quickly agreed. However, I was also persuaded by the opinion that talking about Kepler’s laws wasn’t appropriate and ultimately couldn’t discuss that topic. I checked my watch. Time keeps flowing. We can’t just talk about astronomy forever. I need to choose the topic well and finish it in one go. I compared the general knowledge stored in my memory with the discovery periods of each, stroking my chin chronologically before saying.

“There’s a column saying that the light cluster in Andromeda might not actually be in our galaxy. What do you think?”

“I think it’s plausible.”

“So where do you think it is?”

You shouldn’t be able to think that’s plausible yet, historically speaking?

When I made sharp eyes and rested my chin on my hand, Elias gave an answer I never expected.

“Humans think everything should be in the place where they live, but they need to wake up and face reality properly…”

“What are you saying…”

This is how the conversational resources of two people who only know Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune get exhausted.

“Actually, you see, in our era we think Andromeda is a cloud-like mass made of light, but it might actually be another galaxy. Isn’t this somewhat surprising?”

“It is surprising.”

Elias opened his eyes wide, seeming genuinely moved.

“So you’re saying that cloud is actually a cloud mass that emits light due to stars? Like the Orion Nebula and Eagle Nebula?”

“Exactly that. Actually, it’s a bit different. Right now you think there’s a cloud in the Andromeda constellation and that cloud emits light by itself, right?”

“Right.”

Elias nods with a serious face. I moved closer to him and said earnestly.

“You think the Orion Nebula has clouds and stars that act like light bulbs are born within them, right?”

“That’s right.”

“But my thinking is different. That cloud, well there might be dust too, but it’s actually a cluster of stars. What do you think?”

“This is an interesting perspective. But haven’t we failed to discover anything that could be called stars in the Andromeda constellation so far? There was only a shining cloud.”

“Maybe they’ll be discovered someday.”

“Then how did you come to think this way? It’s not like you directly observed stars.”

Hubble found out with a telescope. Since Hubble wasn’t even born yet, I couldn’t say that. How should I cover this up? When I shrugged, Elias winked at me and naturally turned his head.

“What do you think about that? That there are stars in Andromeda.”

“Are you asking me?”

The servant put his hand to his chest with a flustered face. We nodded. The servant answered with a bewildered expression.

“Well… We won’t know until we see it directly, will we?”

At those words, I enthusiastically spread both hands and said.

“Why not? Then let me ask the opposite question. Why do you think Andromeda’s cosmic dust emits light by itself without any stars?”

The servant blinked rapidly. He looked down at us with an expression that said ‘what kind of people ask such things?’ His bewildered state was obvious. Elias, who was half-lying against the sofa, raised his hand and answered instead.

“I know that. Clumped cosmic dust absorbs light from surrounding stars, causing the temperature to rise, and eventually the cloud becomes like a star itself.”

I knew that Elias had answered that way not because he had any special background knowledge, but because he was just saying anything, but I nodded.

“Good.”

“Good?”

“Yes. I’m going to refute it anyway.”

“Huh?”

“If this universe is our galaxy, and if those countless stars are uniformly distributed throughout the universe, then why does the night sky turn black like a curtain when the sun sets? The light from the stars shouldn’t just illuminate those points like needle holes poked in drawing paper, but could illuminate the universe itself. Ultimately, shouldn’t it be white like day even at night?”

I looked at the servant and gestured for an answer. He looked at us like we were crazy, then came to his senses and gave a reluctant smile.

“Well… I really don’t know.”

Then Elias appropriately interjected.

“It’s the clumped cosmic dust absorbing light like before. So only a small amount of light reaches the ground.”

This was the common belief of the era. Since I too had sat in science classes at the Imperial 2nd Education Institute, I knew Elias would answer that way. I leaned forward and spoke quietly.

“Good. If it’s absorbing all that light, then as you say the dust’s temperature would skyrocket, so why don’t the countless clouds floating in space emit light themselves? Ultimately, shouldn’t the night sky be as bright as day?”

“…”

Elias blinked with a surprised face. He was truly flustered by my act, opening his mouth and smiling with a strange expression. I turned my head and gestured to the servant.

“Good. What do you think about that…”

“I’ll step out for a moment. I remembered something I need to do.”

The servant spoke firmly as if he wouldn’t deal with us anymore and left the room. Elias licked his lips while watching the door close quietly.

“Success.”

At those words, I exhaled deeply and pressed my forehead. Finally we had escaped surveillance. I chuckled and said.

“I’m amazed you know how to annoy people into leaving…”

“I’ve always lived like this.”

Right. You knew how to be annoying in a different sense. Indomitable will worked everywhere. Elias put his eye to the keyhole of the reception room. He observed the hallway for a while, then at some point sent me a hand signal. We naturally slipped out of the reception room.

As expected, there was no one in the hallway. Elias removed the restraints on his hands, and I did the same. Then I held his hand and cast invisibility magic. Elias quickly scanned the hallway, then went down the stairs.

The basement level. The basement mainly housed the servants’ quarters. Of course there were many cases of them being on the ground floor, but rather than looking for those, he probably thought it would be better to target the basement.

Elias randomly put his ear to doors. When there were signs of people, he shook his head and approached other rooms. He found a room with no signs of people, but when he turned the handle, it wouldn’t turn. Elias sighed. Then he took out wire from his clutch.

“…”

“Hahaha.”

Elias made a strange sound as he picked the lock. Then he quickly pushed me inside. What we needed to do was clear. I approached the wardrobe, and he rummaged through drawers and grabbed another key.

“Spare~”

“Lots of clothes.”

The servant’s uniforms were neatly hung. I pulled out an appropriate shirt and held it against my body, then immediately realized the servant was shorter than me and shook my head.

“No good. He seems about a span shorter than me.”

“What? Oh no…”

Elias held his head, then put the spare key back in the drawer and rushed out. No, he was about to do that but changed his mind, came back in and grabbed an old bag. I quickly followed behind him. Elias turned his head and whispered.

“We need someone tall and plump. You need to wear pants one size bigger to hide your boots.”

“I suppose so. But such a person…”

“There might be one.”

He grabbed my hand and ran. Running at full speed while scanning both sides of the wide basement corridor shaped like a square, he saw a door with a couple of large baskets and kicked the ground to stop right there.

“Found it.”

He had just been running around noisily, but now he leisurely stuck one hand in his pocket and stood there, politely knocking twice on the door with his index finger knuckle. When no answer came from inside, he quickly turned the door handle.

The room was a laundry room. There was a fearsome-looking washing machine on one side and an iron on the other. Elias unfolded a neatly folded shirt and held it against his body, then snapped his fingers. He found a vest, jacket, and pants, changed clothes, and handed me appropriate clothes. Then he stuffed our original clothes into the old bag. After we had changed and were fixing our hair, Elias, who had been watching silently, spoke with a worried face.

“Did you release the cognitive disruption magic? You’re too conspicuous to pretend to be a servant.”

“So are you. What are you going to do?”

“Me too? Ah~ what to do.”

Elias looked in the mirror, stroking his chin and shaking his head.

“In our team, when it came to looks it was Leo and Haike, but now I guess I need to join them too.”

I just laughed at Elias’s cheekiness. Just as I naturally don’t pay much attention to how I or others look, Elias was the same way, so it was clearly just a joke. But it was true that we really stood out, so we did need to solve it.

“We can’t use illusion magic.”

I muttered as I went outside. Illusions should be used minimally. Count Caetani was surely a powerful mage like the upper generation ruling family mages such as Georg Ascanien, and while illusions would work, if we communicated in front of him for a long time with magic cast, we would surely arouse suspicion. It might be different if it were Narke’s illusion magic skills. For now, I was ambiguous.

‘Let me think about what Narke might be planning.’

I had said that after arriving in Rome, we needed to steal Caetani’s or Sabelli’s seal. What does ‘stealing the seal’ mean? It means disguising something that is not Caetani’s will as Caetani’s will. We would send false information to Orsini to draw Orsini’s clergy away from the Papal States. Since we couldn’t imitate Count Caetani’s handwriting—or his dedicated scribe’s handwriting—we planned to type a letter to send to Orsini and then stamp it with the seal. The family seal would most likely be in the safe in Count Caetani’s office here at Count Caetani’s residence. But we didn’t have the ability to open the safe. We didn’t have security magic neutralization formulas like Terminus Yukairya.

Therefore, to achieve what the plan to ‘steal the seal’ implied, Narke would have Count Caetani write the letter directly or take out the seal himself.

To do that?

“…No need to worry. Let’s go out the back gate.”

“We just got in and now we’re going back out?!”

“Yes. We got clothes, so it’s fine.”

Clothes, Elias said that and went up to the ground floor. Mages who looked like scholars were coming down the stairs and strolling through the courtyard. We felt our consciences prick as people who had once been Swiss university students and waited until they all passed before going outside. The back gate was set up so we could just open it.

“…!”

As soon as we opened the door, what we saw was an old man standing in an upright posture right in front of the back gate. The old man smiled broadly when he saw us. My heart pounded from the thought that I had almost hit the old man with the door, and I laughed awkwardly.

“…Priest.”

“Ah, let’s go with Your Grace here.”

“You’re Count Caetani of Pisa.”

Narke nodded. Elias looked back and forth between me and Narke with an expression asking how I knew that.

To use the seal that Count Caetani of Rome possessed, we had to persuade him with words. Naturally, with lies.

Who would Count Caetani of Rome find trustworthy? Sabelli? Orsini? Colonna? Conti? Well. Wasn’t there a trustworthy internal collaborator we heard about earlier? A collaborator trustworthy enough to transfer his child’s enemy.

Narke would disguise himself as Caetani of Pisa. This was my prediction.

Caetani of Pisa might not be blood-related to Caetani of Rome, but they believed they were family and lived pretending to be the same house. Then couldn’t servants wear the same clothes too? Servants’ clothing was all similar anyway, but subtle differences could make everything look different.

Narke, in the appearance of an old man, gestured to us.

“Now let’s go around to the main gate.”

“Your Grace. How long can you deceive them in that state?”

“I can’t be certain.”

Narke answered that way and headed toward the mansion’s main gate, knocking on the door like Elias had earlier. This time a servant came out more quickly. Narke immediately introduced himself to the servant.

“I am Marte Caetani. I’ve come from the Two Sicilies to meet Count Caetani.”

“Your Grace.”

The servant who recognized who he was hurriedly bowed properly and tried to take Narke’s hat. Narke waved his hand sharply.

“Thank you, but that’s fine, so quickly bring the Count. Time is of the essence.”

“The matter is…”

“This is not the time to discuss that! Don’t you think there’s a reason I warped directly here from the Two Sicilies!”

“Yes, yes. His Grace happens to be inside. If you wait in the reception room, I’ll speak to His Grace in the meantime.”

The servant hurriedly led us to the second floor. It was different from when we had crossed the courtyard toward the end of the mansion grounds earlier. Red wallpaper, gold decorations, candlelight, and mahogany stair railings created a dark atmosphere. The servant put us in the reception room and immediately headed to another floor almost at a run.

“‘Happens to be inside,’ he said…”

Narke, seated, muttered expressionlessly as if that bothered him. Even while wearing the outward appearance of Marte Caetani, he maintained the same cool expression he had shown constantly since arriving in Rome. Yet when facing people, he acted like he had become someone else, playing Marte Caetani.

After a while, the reception room door opened. A middle-aged mage dressed in formal attire entered the room. That person must be Count Caetani of Rome. We, who had been standing beside Marte Caetani, bowed to him and stood at attention again. Count Caetani of Rome sat in front of Marte and spoke in a dignified voice.

“I heard you were looking for me. What brings you here without notice?”

“It’s been a long time, Count. Something has come up that I need to discuss with you in person. It concerns diplomacy.”

“Let me hear what the matter is.”

“…”

Marte Caetani opened his mouth to say something, then slowly closed it again and looked at his counterpart.

Silence continued. The moment I looked at Narke in bewilderment, Count Caetani drew his wand.

“…!”

My hand moved toward a wand holster that wasn’t even there, then was pulled back up into the air. I had to release the restraints I had put back on to pass through the barrier. The moment I reflexively put my hand to my neck, sharp divine power bound my body.

Kwaaaaang—!

My consciousness wavered as the wall struck my head. Unbearable pressure from divine power gripped my entire body tightly. Seeing that Elias’s blue mana was not present in this place, he had surely met the same fate as me. Elias shouted.

“Wait—!”

—He who hears you hears me.

Kwang—!

—He who rejects you rejects me.

This incantation…! I squinted my eyes. My lungs felt like they would burst from the pressure of divine power, whatever spell he had cast on us. Through the light of divine power obscuring my vision, I could see Narke collapsed on the floor.

―Those who reject me reject the one who sent me.

The wand held by the Duke of Caetani poured out divine power without the slightest tremor, crushing Narke’s throat. Starting from the mage’s divine power, Narke’s illusion melted away in concentric circles. Narke returned to his original form, a tall young priest whose shoulders were not hunched nor whose face was wrinkled. Strangely, he looked up at midair with a detached expression, showing no regret whatsoever about what had happened. Perhaps because his magical power had concentrated in his head, blood began to flow from Narke’s face. The Duke of Caetani spoke in a cold voice.

“Playing house in Germany must have made you lose all your abilities.”

I struggled to secure light in my vision that was turning black from the pressure and barely managed to open the status window. The status window of the duke who was merely flicking his wand from far away.

“….”

I understood why Narke was so calm.

“You could have known that I would be here.”

The Duke of Caetani erased the illusion he had been covering himself with. The young mage we had last met at Penthalon appeared with a familiar face.

“What I can anticipate, you already anticipated long ago. For what reason did you shamelessly set foot here?”

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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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