How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 503

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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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One, two, three.

The silence stopped everything and I thought it must be my imagination. If not, I wondered when it would end. The light sinks. Emmanuel’s face belatedly contorted.

“What?”

“I mean I can visit the future. I’m sorry for not telling you beforehand. I’m truly sorry that I can’t tell you everything.”

Words that made no sense even to my own ears flowed out. I spoke mechanically. My current psychological state while speaking was neither numb nor complacent. I thought it would be so. That attitude was the result of not revealing the fact for fear that I might hesitate to confess myself.

“Huh…”

Emmanuel looked down at me as if I had gone mad. I looked up at him without wavering. The rising heat and the discord between body and mind brought about adverse reactions. Emmanuel stared at me for a long time before reaching his own shocking conclusion.

“This isn’t… a joke.”

It was something no one could believe. Just having him consider it not a joke was surprising enough—though he must have figured it out using his unique ability. So I knew his words didn’t stem from irresponsibility. Confused and half-believing, half-doubting, his tongue moved first as he groped for the truth. So knowing that his confirmation might be rude if my words were true, he asked again. Like this.

“It’s not true, right.”

“Why would I joke with Your Highness.”

The cold sofa quickly absorbed my body temperature. Powerful chemical agents not gradually adapted to cause unexpected temperature changes and organ distortion. Emmanuel, knowing I was feverish in many ways, poured liquor into an iced glass and offered it to me. It would be better to fall asleep than to use the strength to receive and drink it. I buried only my head in the sofa and instead of answering, raised my left hand to strike something forcefully. Ah, Emmanuel, who reflexively made that sound, was startled and grasped at the air. The cold air that had approached near my neck scattered far away. Emmanuel, who naturally wouldn’t stay still after being rejected, had been just about to bring the cold glass to my neck. Emmanuel was surprised, worried the glass might tip over and spill the liquor, but I had enough control not to let that happen. I first grabbed the liquor glass that I had blocked with magic in a circle, set it down on the table, and sighed. Every time I moved my body, I wanted to fall asleep in that very position. Even now.

Emmanuel drank the rejected liquor himself, refilled it, then placed the hand that had held the glass on my shoulder. Cold energy transmitted through the fabric. His magic covered my skin. The approaching sleep scattered again. Emmanuel smiled slightly and asked.

“Earlier when you called me ‘you,’ that wasn’t a joke either?”

“I’m sorry.”

“So you’re from the future but you’re here now?”

“Something like that… Since that’s my unique ability. Probably.”

“What do you mean probably. How did you handle Princeton’s Everett?”

He offered the glass again. Water dripped from the surface of the glass. Since he didn’t care at all whether I felt uncomfortable while sleeping, I had no choice but to quickly sit up with the mindset of finishing this quickly, snatch the glass, down the liquor in one go, and set it down on the table with a sound. I believed it would make me more confused, but instead my mind gradually became clearer. It might be neutralizing the magic of the sleeping pills. I threw off my wet gloves and pressed my temples.

“I’ll be honest with you. I don’t know what’s what either. I have no idea how this mechanism works at all. Princeton’s Everett? I don’t even know if that’s me or not, or how it happened. I too can only theorize by directly confronting it, and there’s no guarantee that’s the right answer.”

“How realistic.”

“I’m not God, so I can’t help but not know.”

“Well.”

To the dry response came an equally sharp reply.

“Since the grace called magic was given to humans, the only thing humans have not overcome is time.”

He wanted to say that the ability to manipulate time at will is an ability only God possesses. He wouldn’t say it outright since it would be blasphemous. I listened without reaction.

“Unable to turn back time, we cannot block the black fluid flowing from corpses’ mouths and must watch the Empire’s treasures turn to powder. Pompeii and old Lazaretto remain as they were the day they died. Countless people struggle to make the blood vessels pulsing along the lung surface beat one more time until the day all liquids circulating through our bodies rot and turn to powder. The infinite prayers that have reached, are reaching, and will continue to reach heaven are all problems that could be solved if only time could be turned back.”

Even if everything else made sense, turning back time is an ability no one has, so what? However he regarded me, I felt no antipathy. I just wanted to know what he would say. I rattled the empty glass. As I held the crushed ice in my mouth, Emmanuel poured amber whiskey into it again. I just nodded and drank the liquor.

Emmanuel’s weighty voice was heard.

“To be honest, I still can’t believe it. When and where, what future did you see and return from?”

“I won’t tell you.”

I answered, feeling my head ache in a different way. Leaning forward with my elbows on my knees, I only turned my head toward Emmanuel and spoke emphatically.

“I cannot tell you. Do you understand? Whether you ask me to tell Your Highness’s future or anyone’s future, unless I judge that telling this would keep you all safe, I won’t tell you even if you threaten to kill me.”

I realized I had been putting force into my eyes only after that. He was momentarily flustered by the expression I made and calculated for a long time. Eyes I’d seen somewhere before dissected every element thoroughly. From each of these statements, Emmanuel was increasingly confirming that I had not lied.

“You said you studied in America, so how do you know the Bavarian royal family’s future?”

I looked at him no differently than before. Unable to read the answer from my expression, Emmanuel asked again.

“Am I going to die or something? That would be the only way my news would cross over. If not that, then you’re not American?”

“Don’t even ask.”

I was about to ruffle my hair when I realized I was still maintaining this damn hairstyle and untied the string. The tied shape had been distorted long ago anyway, so it didn’t matter. When my face became invisible, Emmanuel gathered my hair and swept it to the other side, looking down at me. Though I was leaning forward looking only at the floor, I could tell he was doing that. I quietly continued speaking.

“The only thing I can tell you about is Pleroma. …And what stocks will rise around this time, where railroad regions will be laid.”

“Oh ho.”

Even though this wasn’t a situation for jokes, Emmanuel sat beside me in the same position and brought his face close.

“Let’s hear it then. Excluding what’s been reported, where will the station be installed in the shortest time?”

Excluding what’s been reported? Railroad construction is exactly the business of spreading news here and there from ten years before opening. So he’s essentially asking about confidential routes that the Bavarian government just reviewed and approved. I pressed my head and rummaged through all the newspaper articles I had examined as Nicolaus Ernst in 1898 when studying Bavarian history. It’s good that memories from the world I lived in don’t mix confusingly. Even thinking again, as I thought in Duke Orsini’s “The Name of the Rose” case that causes me great wariness, while there are fields where existence itself splits according to individual life and death, there are also plenty of fields where existence doesn’t split. Other fields have more flexibility. As products of market supply-demand balance or stems extending from the same soil, the birth of certain ‘collective’ involvements like some similar ideologies, systems, or minor inventions flows somewhat similarly to what I knew, but the birth timing being advanced or delayed is countless and natural. I wasn’t grateful for the obvious fact that I hadn’t studied German railroad history anywhere before taking office as Nicolaus Ernst, but at least thanks to that, I found myself in quiet peace. Therefore, I answered without hesitation.

“You’ll establish a new Bayreuth-Warmensteinach line. The Bavarian Commerce Department already reviewed it positively in ’66, but it proceeded sluggishly and ended without results.”

Silence flowed.

“We’ve never announced it anywhere.”

Of course you wouldn’t, since the Bavarian government will issue permits now in 1886 and it will open in about five years… I rubbed my eyes and waited for his question. Or for him to accept it.

“You looked at Commerce Department records and guessed…”

“I don’t have access rights, and Your Highness would think that’s unlikely too. There are more than one or two routes that were mentioned and fizzled out, and even ’66. It’s ’86 now. You know well how many requests come to the government for railroad construction.”

“Did you think that because it’s in a place where iron ore and timber are easy to obtain?”

“By that logic, there would be many places to open.”

Emmanuel fell silent. He took out a cigarette case made of leather and platinum from inside his jacket and pulled out a different cigarette from what he’d been smoking earlier.

“There’s a saying that one who knows the master’s will shall receive more beatings. It’s because of the ability gained from knowing the master’s will. Also, the righteous will continue to act righteously, and it will be because of the ability gained from righteousness. Also, those who receive the most will be required the most.”

I nodded. Emmanuel continued.

“It doesn’t make sense at first hearing, so it requires thought. The omitted words in this sentence would be ‘from God.’ Those who receive the most from God will be required the most from God. Those who are to be saved will be required much suffering until they receive salvation—unlucky words. So I understand why Count Everett doesn’t let you know the future. It’s not for your sake but for ours.”

Knowledge is bearing God’s will—he moved his lips as if to say that, then closed his mouth. Then, still maintaining about a hundred million light-years of distance right next to me, he said.

“In that sense, how about you, Count?”

I silently looked into his eyes. Emmanuel’s face was hidden and revealed by cigarette smoke.

“Don’t you know too much? So aren’t you compelled to act righteously?”

He emphasized ‘compelled’ when he said it. I felt someone reflected in his face. I thought of the friend I’d left behind. So I didn’t answer and ended the conversation. Emmanuel, with a ‘what’s this’ expression, smiled truly for the first time in this place. But he quickly withdrew his smile. Only the sound of sighs flowed for a while. Feeling my head ache from the cigarette smell, I diluted the foreign gas entering my throat and airways with alcohol—though it probably wasn’t being diluted at all, I created that feeling.

“What if you just bite and tell everything I ask like this.”

This was what Emmanuel said after thinking for a while.

“No matter how much I ask, if your ability was this kind of ability, you shouldn’t have answered.”

I burst into laughter without realizing it at those words and turned my head to the side. I can see Emmanuel looking down at me from above. I asked him.

“So, you want me to distance myself like this?”

Emmanuel quietly looks down at me. I forgot the fact that eyes must close and open sometime. Fixing my gaze on his two pupils, I spoke slowly.

“How should I convince you that I’m working for Bavaria’s benefit. If you wish, shall I permit bringing a powerful Arcane Mage from the Vatican to break down my mind and make me speak the truth? You already had that power and didn’t do such a thing to me because it wouldn’t be proper. Just because my permission is attached to something improper doesn’t make it honorable and right. After it’s over, we cannot return to before we carried out this agreed-upon violence.”

Emmanuel, with a ‘that’s true’ expression, rested his arm on the sofa and spoke in a tone different from his expression.

“It was an incomparably dangerous thing to do. What if I reported you? What if I recklessly blabbered about it or got blinded by national interest and had you hospitalized demanding various technical experiments?”

“You wouldn’t do that. Please say something that makes sense.”

I said with a sigh while touching my eyes. Emmanuel brought his face close to mine and widened his eyes.

“I’m saying you shouldn’t go around saying such things elsewhere, Count Everett.”

He entreated without a hint of wavering or doubt.

“Absolutely not.”

Yes, to no one. I already know well and won’t tell any other you either. I looked into his sky-blue pupils for a long time, then turned my head and said.

“I expected Your Highness would react this way. I didn’t speak with a ‘whatever happens, happens’ mindset to get out of the situation, but kept thinking about it. It was one of two possible results I anticipated. Just because there are two expected results doesn’t mean the probability is half each. Since I rated the possibility of this result highly, I already thought during our three-way conversation with His Grace the Duke that I shouldn’t treat you all this way. If we had a common goal and were cooperating from our respective positions, there would be no need or reason to reveal everything to anyone, but that’s not the case, and since I’m unilaterally asking for help from you all who have no goals, it doesn’t make sense from the start… Most fundamentally, I thought this attitude wasn’t right on a moral level.”

I looked at Emmanuel again and said.

“I also did it because I wanted to have you as friends. That’s why I said it. I already thought I should be as honest as possible with you all. So you don’t need to worry about me saying it elsewhere.”

Emmanuel slowly smiled. He looked elsewhere and suddenly said.

“I wasn’t convinced.”

“Which part?”

“Astral projection with two people going to the past already sounds strange, but on top of that, I don’t understand how a person can visit the future. That’s not an ability that should be given to people. The Lord permitted humans many things, and that’s why we can use magic, they say, but as I said again, He did not permit time. So you must be…”

“I don’t think God exists.”

At my answer, Emmanuel’s eyebrow twitched. Gradually understanding the meaning and surprised, he nodded and opened his mouth.

“Ah, I see. I probably think so too, precisely speaking.”

Silence flows. I declared myself an atheist in front of someone who would have naturally become Catholic growing up in a Catholic household. Whether he truly believed God existed or not, he had no intention of breaking away. I was unbothered and he agonized. Then, he showed a face of detached comfort—Gelassenheit.

“Then it’s resolved. Since there’s no God, you have no limitations. The logic that there are abilities humans shouldn’t and cannot have doesn’t exist in your atheistic worldview. Right?”

“Yes.”

Emmanuel turned his head. He said matter-of-factly.

“I see. Then you’re human-like.”

He spoke to himself. At least that’s how it felt at first. And then I immediately sensed that whoever he was speaking to, I needed to reflect on it. Because everything had been heard in the near future. It’s a vague sensation in itself.

“I said I wasn’t convinced, but that’s a technical matter.”

Emmanuel said, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray.

“I’m sorry to say I already knew you weren’t trying to harm us, but I couldn’t believe it. But now I can believe it. As you know, knowing and accepting are different things.”

He regained his playfulness. Returning to a relaxed expression, he rested both arms on the sofa back, lowered his body slightly, and briefly acted cheeky. Then he got up, propped his chin, and brought his face up toward mine from below.

“Should I apologize first, or thank you first?”

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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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