How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 472

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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 silver sunlight pouring from the left clearly reveals the boundary between Gabrielle’s iris and pupil. His eyes, which had been directed toward the window, turn to meet mine. Gabrielle speaks.

“Brother.”

At that voice, I gaze intently into Gabrielle’s eyes. I could read contemplation in Gabrielle’s black pupils.

“I feel emotions beyond words at the fact that I can still call you brother. You must remember that I think of you this way.”

What emotions do you feel? Just as I was about to ask that, Gabrielle continued as if he had read my mind.

“However, I cannot grasp what to call the ambivalent emotions clashing deep in my heart, nor do I know how to handle them, so please understand that I cannot explain all the facts to you in detail.”

He still spoke in the same German as before. In that tone I had heard during the Penthalon days. I nodded my chin slightly. Gabrielle’s long, curved black hair sways in the wind. He spoke.

“How much have you figured out?”

About what.

But I immediately intuited what he was asking about, so I could only respond like this.

“Don’t you already know without asking?”

“You know that a German cult called Pleroma has chosen you as their messiah.”

An unpleasant fact pierces my lungs from the start. What remarkable accuracy indeed. This was the power of 4th-level Insight— before I could even finish the thought, Gabrielle speaks.

“I even see a fake among them.” A fake. He must be referring to Ishmailov, but I didn’t expect him to read that far. Gabrielle tilted his head slightly in the brief moment when I was a bit bewildered. His eyes never left mine for a moment. He speaks again. “Yes, that was your substitute.”

He continued speaking as if conversing with another me inside me. It’s confusing. 4th-level Insight conveyed far more to him than what he said. I don’t know why he claims he can only know things vaguely. Since I was accustomed to having my inner thoughts read because of Narke and felt no regret about it, I asked about what he had discovered.

“Fine. How much can you tell me about that subject?”

“It’s true that the fake has no intention of harming you.”

“That’s something I already know.”

Then Gabrielle spoke with an expression that said he had expected this.

“You have no choice about whether to meet that fake again or not. Because he already loves you.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“With that, the preparations are already complete. I don’t know the reason.”

The overreach and limitations of Insight intersect. It feels like playing twenty questions. But I’m no longer bewildered. When I listen to his words, my knowledge and his statements repeatedly touch and separate. I stroked my chin and said.

“I suppose I shouldn’t have met that person at all.”

“Unless you were reborn, you would have met him eventually.”

What an eerie statement. As I had thought before—I was standing on the still-wet ink of King Oedipus. And Delphi is here. I felt the temperature of my blood gradually cooling as I listened to his words.

“The important thing is that he is your prototype and you are the ultimate ideal. However, the current you has become distant even from the prototype. They will try to restore you to your original state.”

“Return me to before I changed?”

“That’s right.”

“How do they know what parts of me changed and by how much to do such a thing?”

“You already know the answer.”

I smiled to erase my thoughts. Gabrielle, who clearly knows I intend to remain silent, continues speaking.

“That day, Farnese will try to save you but won’t be able to. It’s fundamentally impossible.”

“Why?”

“I cannot say.”

Of course. He made a promise with Narke earlier. I looked at him expressionlessly.

“But brother, you must know. You must not trust everything that surrounds you.”

My head began to ache. I swept back my hair and asked quietly.

“If Narke Farnese cannot save me, can I save myself?”

“But you will decide to believe even after learning everything. This is not because you are foolish, but rather because you can understand too much and thus know how to look down upon others’ foolishness. I can see that.”

He was now pitying the me that I didn’t yet know. I had asked about his previous statement, but he skipped my question and continued saying what he needed to say. Our conversation doesn’t mesh. His gaze wasn’t on me. Like Narke, he looks beyond me.

“Even so, I cannot stop you. Christ knew his disciple would betray him, but he did not flee. He knew what would befall him, but he did not avoid his place. So how could I, who must pass through the narrow path according to Christ’s teachings, dare advise you to enter the wide and broad gate that leads to destruction?”

Having said that, he slowly shook his head and whispered.

“Even if I were actually a being like Satan, taking your hand and earnestly pleading ‘Please do not go down that path,’ you would reject my plea and enter toward the narrow path.”

“Why.”

“Because that is who you are. Your destiny began there.”

“….”

It sounds like he’s saying the reason I came to this world lies here. Because I seek the narrow path rather than the wide one. As Leo had told me countless times, because I act for the greater good. The gate that leads to life is narrow and the path is constricted…. Well, I never thought I was personally practicing the essence of the teachings conveyed in the Gospel of Matthew. I never thought I was following Christ’s teachings. I unconsciously moved my lips.

“Do I die in the process of passing through the gate that leads to life?”

“What does it mean to be ‘I’?”

A question returns in answer to my question. Gabrielle had struck at the core, and I had nothing to say. Yes, what does it mean to be “I”? The body, the mind? The habits that formed me, the values I never wanted to lose no matter what, time, memory….

If I were to lose something among these, what would I lose? I had been staring into Gabrielle’s eyes for too long, so I muttered with gradually unfocusing vision.

“I am an atheist.”

“I know.”

“In my world, there is no such thing as god. To me, god is a creation that humans made because, unlike the primordial times when they lived as four-legged animals merely searching for today’s meal, they developed to consider far too many things and could not bear all their troubles with their own strength alone. Is the highly developed brain of the human species, incomparable to other animals, a blessing? To answer this question would take hours without end, so to answer simply, I don’t think so. Humans support their brains on two legs, but actually lack the strength to bear that weight themselves. God is humanity’s child born from that origin. This is my atheism.”

“….”

“Then why did someone like me become a messiah-like figure to Pleroma? Simply because of my capabilities? Or because of someone’s absurd revelation?”

By capabilities, I mean both the disposition toward the narrow gate that Gabrielle just mentioned and the temperament I showed on the Lenten ceremony day. Silence flows. He could just answer yes if that’s the case. Gabrielle said nothing. He seemed to think I had asked about exactly the problematic subject, yet also seemed to think I had touched on the wrong answer. I feel a terrible chill under Rome’s blazing sunlight streaming through the window.

I continued speaking.

“Christ believed in God’s existence. The Envoys of the Covenant never doubted God’s existence. In contrast, I have moved beyond the stage of doubt to think that transcendent beings simply don’t exist. I don’t expect you, with your theistic worldview, to understand an atheist’s thoughts like mine. To you, my disbelief must look like a direct train to hell. But no matter how much you rage at me and feel pity, unlike you, hell doesn’t exist for me. Now I think there might be a soul, but I don’t believe in anything beyond that. I don’t believe in things that haven’t been proven. Conversely, I understand that in your world, the afterlife and God exist. But that’s all. They don’t exist in my world. For a messiah to function as a messiah, surely he must be a theist. Why was I, an atheist who should fall into hell’s pit, chosen by them?”

Only then does he open his mouth.

“First, the difference in views on how to accept ‘unproven things’ is as distant and sharp a problem as the gap between atheism, which has rapidly increased in our era, and traditional theism. And also, what I’m about to say will seem very obvious to you as you are now. But that is a grave miscalculation. I hope you remember every word I say without forgetting anything. And recall it on the last day.”

“….”

“There are those who try to prove the unproven. They are those who try to summon god before their very eyes. But accepting what cannot be proven while leaving it unproven is the foundation of faith. Trying to prove what cannot be proven within human limitations is a challenge to divine authority and the same pride that will bring destruction and scatter people like Noah’s descendants. Sorry to the scholars who put Q.E.D. on theology, but that’s how I see it.”

Unlike during the Penthalon days when he despised me for being an atheist, Gabrielle continued speaking expressionlessly and calmly.

“This is not a matter of atheism versus theism. You, as an atheist, regard Old Testament stories as just one among world religious tales, no different from Mesopotamian myths, but crucially, you don’t tell us to prove god’s existence.”

“There’s no reason I should.”

“Exactly. You have no interest in god. You’re not persistent enough to demand proof, nor do you consider it significantly meaningful. You merely contemplate the world thinking that atheists should live as atheists, theists as theists, and among theists, Christians should believe Christianity, Jews should believe Judaism, and Hindus should believe Hinduism. To me, someone like you is a person I cannot agree with ideologically but who has low priority as a problem. Because you exercise indifference toward the world and universe equally to everyone, thus respecting our world. However, atheists who pester us to prove god’s existence or boast they will definitely prove god doesn’t exist are as rude as theists who urge me to believe Hinduism. But these people, some of these people, are very dangerous.”

Gabrielle said I’m indifferent about the world and universe because I’m an atheist, but I don’t particularly think that’s true. However, I don’t feel like arguing much. What I want to know is his entire thought process that allowed him to come up with what he wanted to say from my question while not answering ‘why does Pleroma try to use an atheist as messiah?’

“They’re dangerous not because they’re rude, but because they’re devoted to proving god’s existence. Whether trying to prove god exists or trying to prove god doesn’t exist. If devotion remains in speculation, I could just advise such atheists to let go of pessimism and stubbornness. But if zeal is put into action, especially if such zeal is executed in this era when humans have been granted magic as divine grace, that scholarly fervor like a train racing downhill is destined to rush toward catastrophe that no one can stop.”

Gabrielle stopped speaking. He fell silent with a face recalling something, then muttered.

“The same goes for theists.”

The same goes for theists. Here the reason he said ‘this is not a matter of atheism versus theism’ is revealed. This time Gabrielle didn’t meet my eyes. He continued speaking while looking out the window.

“We must be wary of theists who are devoted to finding out what cannot be discovered within human limitations. These are people who mistake their desire for proof and scholarly fervor for faith, or who want to monopolize god. All catastrophes begin from the desire to accomplish what humans cannot do.”

“….”

“Whether to believe in god or not is a very sharp issue, but not now. God’s existence or non-existence is not important in this matter. This matter cannot prove whether god exists or not… It must be so. Therefore, for us, to solve the disaster before us, the only important thing is whether the people before us want to restore god or not. In this matter, neither atheists nor theists can be trusted.”

Isn’t this about Pleroma? I wanted to ask that. Theists who want to prove god’s existence—it’s a bit different, but that closely resembles Pleroma. But Gabrielle said I would think it’s obvious now, but that’s wrong thinking. It’s not about Pleroma, is that it…. Then who is this aimed at? I slowly nodded.

“Why must I recall this on the last day?”

“I merely wish to set things right.”

Gabrielle was telling me something with his eyes. Not to me, but to the me of the distant future. He says the same thing as Narke. I didn’t yet know what he was telling me.

“Then what should I do?”

“You must not waver. Everything you have believed will collapse.”

I narrowed my eyes at those words and snorted. The laughter quickly fades. Gabrielle looks at me with a face showing not a trace of bewilderment—strangely, with the same eyes as before, as if telling me something. Right. He knows more than I do. I don’t know why he knows. I looked straight at him and said quietly.

“What if it was already collapsing?”

“Even so, does your belief that there is no god in the world remain the same?”

“Yes.”

Gabrielle smiled. He didn’t answer my question. Instead, he gave me Delphi’s prophecy.

“Everything will be recreated, everything will fall, and then everything will come into your hands. Then you must exist as yourself. Even if you take a long detour, if you hold your ground, you can escape.”

It was something I had heard before. To maintain your center, in the end. I smiled at those words. Gabrielle continues speaking.

“Now the key depends on you. Even if it seems you have no choices that day, that’s not true.”

“….”

Gabrielle looked at my smile as a defense mechanism and leaned forward. For the first time, for the very first time since entering this room, he spoke pleadingly with eyes tinged with anxiety.

“So don’t believe anything.”

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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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