How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 486

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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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You’re hearing this for the first time?

Elias blinked in confusion. It would be nice if he could read what this friend was thinking right now.

“You… You have a friend you like, don’t you.”

Without realizing it, Elias said that and then closed his mouth. Thinking about what that unknown voice had said, he figured someone must have cherished this friend, so he spoke like that. But after saying it, he realized it was inappropriate to casually bring up the story of a friend who had been intimate enough to leave a deep mark in his heart, and he felt troubled for speaking first. He also felt uncomfortable for having arbitrarily pieced together speculation about information his friend might not want to reveal. However, his friend answered without being shaken.

“Yes. But you’re still the first.”

The first in what? In recognizing the light and shadow that must exist in your nature, or in saying that I have no choice but to treat you as a human no different from others? Elias was still bewildered and only looked at his friend silently. Before that, his friend pointed at Elias’s clothes as if something still bothered him.

“Let’s sort this out first. Why do you look like a drowned rat?”

“You were a soggy mess too.”

“…What are you talking about. And I’m not soggy at all right now.”

“I changed your clothes for you. Otherwise you’d be coughing right now, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t have been able to sleep more either. Aren’t you grateful?”

At those words, his friend narrowed his eyes and turned his clothes inside out. After checking what had been changed, he offered his thanks.

“Thank you.”

“That’s too much!”

“What is… But why didn’t you change your clothes?”

“I wanted to try catching a cold.”

You guys will be on leave until your limbs are attached, but I won’t be. I’m going to take leave too. Let’s see, let me escape from headquarters for the month of April… The playful words get stuck in his throat. His friend found even the words about wanting to catch a cold amusing and laughed as he got up from his seat. Then he picked up the clothes that had been spread under where he was lying and shook them out. Cool white light descended. Having used divine power for such a trivial matter, he held out the well-smoothed clothes to Elias.

“Thanks to you, I slept well. Thank you. So now change your clothes.”

Elias looked into his eyes once and nodded. After Elias roughly changed only his wet clothes and sat back down, his friend asked.

“But why… This is strange. Did they say it would rain?”

“It did rain.”

“I’m sure there was nothing like that in the forecast.”

His friend muttered, easily recalling his memory. Elias only smiled and remained silent. How long had they been like that? His friend spoke again. He looked out at the thicket visible between the temple pillars and said.

“I’ve rarely told you my story in detail.”

“That’s true for me too.”

Realizing that his friend intended to continue the story from earlier, Elias quickly shook his head, worried that his friend might feel burdened. His friend smiled faintly and spoke again with a calm face.

“What you know is that I was previously tired, apathetic, and therefore felt no need to reach for the future. Even that I shaped my future through you the moment I felt that everything was meaningless.”

The moment Elias heard the words “through you,” he felt an inexplicable joy rising. It was something he had heard before, but it was still the same now. However, at the same time, the word “tired” made Elias’s heart sink. Even though his friend had expressed all negative things in past tense, implying that it wasn’t the case now, he couldn’t help feeling anxious for unknown reasons. Therefore, instead of expressing his joy fully, Elias listened with a calm face like his friend.

“But I’ve never talked about what process I went through to spend my lifetime. Actually, yes. For example, what happened 7 years ago, what happened 6 years ago, what people said about me 1 year ago – there are few opportunities to bring up such soft stories without any special events. I don’t think my friend should share all of my burdens either.”

His friend looks toward the far side of the temple, lost in thought. Elias only looked at his eyes.

“I might have been apathetic from the beginning, as people said. It seems to be my nature. But at least as I remember it, I wasn’t tired from the start. Like many others, I gradually became that way without knowing it. Due to very trivial, ordinary times that weren’t even worth bringing up in stories. To be more honest, I didn’t even know I was heading toward the end because of such insignificant things. I only asked myself what the problem was that made me so tired. So in other words, I was standing there blankly, knowing nothing even though I was at the center of all that time. When I realized that such trivial detachment wasn’t trivial, it was too late. But you didn’t even watch my life closely by my side, yet you grasped where the problem was with just a brief, vague impression.”

He lowered his eyes and thought for a moment before continuing.

“And there were always many people who grasped where my problem was.”

“…I suppose so.”

Elias answered as if entranced. His friend nodded.

“As you said. Some criticized, but many people praised my problems. They didn’t verbally command me what to fix and how, but everything in the world advised me what I should fix and how to blend into this world, and I always took those words to heart.”

There were plenty of others who saw Elias’s eccentric behavior and thought he was a strange person. There were also quite a few people who knew that this behavior was connected to problems with his uncle or the Imperial Court. Adults who often prided themselves on being insightful thought that Elias knew he had become a threat to imperial authority thanks to his magical power, so he was arrogantly indulging in debauchery, and Elias, after brief consideration, decided to accept even that as correct. He knew that what his friend was talking about now was a story of the same nature as his own past. His friend’s gaze returned from midair to Elias. It was wavering.

“But you just told me I have no problems.”

Elias, who had been in a daze, felt his mind returning and opened his eyes wide. The moment his friend uttered these words, after his voice and face entered his senses, time seemed to flow only slowly. No, it seemed to have stopped completely. He couldn’t tell what expression he had read on his friend’s face. It was a mirror, and Elias found himself in his face. It was indescribable.

“You haven’t become me and lived through all that time, you haven’t watched what kind of daily life I lived from the side and haven’t heard it from me, yet you… Even while watching the saturation of thoughts that even I couldn’t come to my senses about, you say I’m not a strange person.”

Elias understood the question about whether it was sincere that he had heard earlier. The puzzle pieces fit together. At this moment, he was curious about the old stories his friend hadn’t told him. But even without knowing what time he had gone through, Elias knew why his friend had been diligently taking notes even when he didn’t need to write in a notebook. He imagines what led to that. Even while thinking that bragging about his experiences wouldn’t look good, the rambling words he spoke to ease his friend’s worries were exactly the right answer. His friend was alone for the same reason as Elias. Living as a stranger throughout one’s life – that was the source of fatigue.

Just because you’re close friends doesn’t mean you understand all circumstances. Just because you’re childhood friends doesn’t mean you have the same feelings about all events. Unlike the problem of friends like Leo and Julia always being there reliably by his side, they aren’t chased by the shadow of death like Elias. They aren’t ghost-like beings that exist yet don’t exist. They don’t need to avoid failing grades on tests, and they don’t need to learn how to cross mountain streams. Yes, they would frown at horse racing just like Elias. They would raise textbook ethical issues in the noble and stern tone of royalty while wearing neat uniforms, but they wouldn’t find human figures in racehorses running with bulging neck veins until their joints gave out and vomit up everything they drank that day. They could demolish all illegal racetracks in the domain with a single polite suggestion, but Elias cannot. They do right things because they’re right, but they don’t struggle because they know the sensation of trampled dignity better than anyone. So even though they know why Elias is absent for dozens of days, they find it peculiar, they don’t know why he gets failing grades, they don’t know why he can instantly climb trees, they don’t know why he desperately prays to get drunk while pouring alcohol into his stomach. They don’t know that he feels his throat tightening every time he speaks in Prussian manner. They know but don’t know.

They are still Elias’s irreplaceable friends, and without them, Elias wouldn’t be able to live sanely. Elias had never imagined a world without his friends. Despite all the preceding differences, they are the understanding companions that Elias treasures like life itself, and the reason this is still possible is – first, because Elias also doesn’t fully know his two friends’ intimate hardships and anguish, and second, because even if they can’t perfectly understand each other’s origins, they understand each other’s differences. Because they love each other as they are. If one could understand everything, that would be oneself, not another person, and even one’s own self often fails to understand oneself. So surely the friend before his eyes also has many aspects he doesn’t share with Elias. Nevertheless, at this moment, Elias felt as if he were no different from him. He realized what resonance meant.

Finally, Elias knew that he had become the first person to understand his friend throughout his lifetime. And he realized that his friend was the same for him. The days when they became close because of similar family circumstances seem like a dream. Now the initial thoughts and resolutions have long faded. Elias had met a fundamental stranger, and so had his friend. Shock flowed through his entire body, surprisingly.

“You said that you and I are no different from other people, no different from the people on that street. The words that you wouldn’t revere or be wary mean that to me.”

Elias feels his friend’s voice gradually penetrating his ears more slowly. “I’m incurring another debt like this. You bring me something I couldn’t even think to expect so willingly.” He laughed self-deprecatingly. “What should I do if I become unable to stand up alone without you guys?”

Elias snapped to attention at those words. Before he could say anything, his friend rubbed his face with dry hands and spoke while still smiling hazily. “I’ll develop bad habits.”

Elias didn’t know what to say. He was still in shock. His friend had already returned to all the anguish Elias had experienced while carefully choosing his words – the regret about reading his thoughts without permission – and comforted Elias.

“I know you tried to speak carefully. It was none other than me who told you I wished I could show you my time, even if I had to tear out memories. Even if it’s something that can’t be realized, I’ve never said words I didn’t mean. I was just flustered because I thought it wouldn’t be today.”

“…”

“Now that it’s come to this, I don’t know if a day will come when I’m ready.”

Elias looked into his friend’s eyes. His friend didn’t avoid his gaze either.

“You asked if you could call me as you’ve called me until now.”

As the most nervously brought up topic came up again, Elias’s eardrums rang once more. His friend smiled and answered with an indecipherable expression.

“Of course. Until your heart changes, as much as you want. Eli.”

It’s an answer to be happy about. Nevertheless, Elias suddenly remembered the voice that had once said, wouldn’t everything return to the starting point someday.

Something indescribable boiled up inside him.

He is mistaken. I too, ‘now that it’s come to this,’ am not ready to know what the starting point is. I think I hope we don’t return to some unknown starting point, and if there is a starting point, I hope today would be that very starting point. He prayed more earnestly than ever. Elias, who had been praying haphazardly to the sky until his focus blurred, at some point felt the fog in his head gradually clearing. He finished praying and smiled. Now it was time to return.

“Good, Luca.”

Elias raised the corners of his mouth and smiled in the way they both knew most familiarly. His blue eyes shining, he said.

“I promise I won’t change.”

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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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