How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 518

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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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How to Survive as the Second Son of a Magic Noble Family (518)

“The astral plane.”

Leonard nodded with an indifferent look and took a deep drag of smoke. He didn’t ask any more questions.

A peaceful festival atmosphere continues in celebration of Easter. Children ran into the tunnels of the city hall and came out the other side. People on ferries under the bridge laugh and chat with each other. I caught and dispelled the magic confetti prepared by the Bamberg city hall with my hand, wondering if it wasn’t similar to a scene I had seen before. That day and today are different. We have the information and alliances to successfully carry out this operation, and thanks to preparing the Kingdom of Bavaria in advance, we’ve made Bavaria, which was already a military and economic powerhouse, into a country with systems and resources that other nations don’t possess. We could only spend about 12 hours on operation preparation and planning, and we only have a couple hours left, but our usual attitude and usual preparations weren’t lacking, so there’s no problem seizing the opportunity when it comes. I stepped aside slightly for the children running around wildly, took out a cigarette to smoke and lit it, then used the city hall key made with royal assistance to unlock the door. I continued breathing until the drug effects seeped deep into my body, then asked Leonard, who was smoking well on his own without being told.

“Do you know how to smoke?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you know?”

He looked at me, took a long drag of his cigarette, then picked up the large document box he had set on the ground and entered the building first. He exhaled smoke and answered.

“I won’t answer that.”

Since this was a time when indoor smoking in city hall wasn’t particularly strange, no one stopped us from smoking as we entered. The city hall was empty now due to Easter events. We naturally didn’t come wearing dress uniforms or military uniforms. Instead, we wore clothes that civil servants might wear, and I added my cognitive disruption magic to this. I didn’t cast it too strongly since I needed to conserve my divine power to be safe.

“Why don’t you ask what kind of cigarette this is?”

“I won’t smoke it anywhere else.”

Leonard had already skipped one conversation and answered. Since I often do that, and since it’s hard to find people who converse that way, I like that method. Leonard spoke out of the blue again this time.

“It’s fine.”

I knew he was talking about the cigarette. Unlike ordinary ones made from tobacco leaves, this one was made for astral projection, so the taste would definitely be different. However, Leonard didn’t bring up the taste.

“My senses become much sharper. After experiencing a brief period of dullness… they become much more acute again.”

Leonard spoke with a cold gaze as if analyzing the components of his vision.

“It’s a good item. I think it would be good to apply in combat. Would it be alright to introduce this in peacetime training?”

“Since I brought it for Your Highness’s victory, of course.”

At those words, Leonard’s face takes on a subtly unexpected light.

Your victory, and everything that follows after it—he knows. Wishing for your victory and hoping you will win, he didn’t accept these words as praise about himself. He was someone who knew that human life and dignity are attached to his victory that countless people employed in Bavaria, including myself, or his subjects pray for, and that it should be so. It would have been better if he had laughed playfully and rejoiced, but he already knew he shouldn’t remain in that phase. He had been taught to live this way originally, and now he no longer felt the need to express the side he had shown us exceptionally.

Leonard smiled faintly.

“Thank you.”

I quietly looked at his face like that, then turned my head.

“Let me explain what kind of cigarette this is. Now Your Highness can see the astral plane. You’ll probably feel a bit dizzy. When that happens, don’t continue, you need to stop for a moment. If you need divine power, please gesture to me.”

“I will.”

I spoke while climbing the stairs.

“Now, regarding why the entrance to Bamberg Cathedral is in Bamberg City Hall… I trust you’ve already grasped all the information you could learn from this. Naturally, it means there’s a Pleroma in city hall. They might be a low-level civil servant we haven’t previously examined for integrity with divine power.”

“That’s obvious.”

“Good. Then let’s continue trusting and moving quickly.”

It’s not difficult to think that there would normally be surveillance since that city hall’s Pleroma created an entrance for themselves to come and go, but today is Easter so there are no people working at city hall. The Pleroma attended morning mass and has to participate in the major announcement afterward, so they wouldn’t bother coming to monitor city hall during this brief interval.

Therefore, there’s no need to waste time being too cautious inside city hall. We even prepared luggage to deliberately look like civil servants. I walked down the hallway I had passed with Emmanuel not long ago. When I reached the room where I was told there was a lever, I confirmed there was no magic on the handle and turned it both ways. Naturally it was locked. I pushed magic into the hole of the handle that wouldn’t turn, hardened it, then quickly turned it. By the time the magic scattered, the door was already showing a gap.

Leonard set down the document box at the end of the hallway and put on the monocle he had prepared in advance. He took out a bundle of papers from the document box and handed it to me. The documents at the bottom of this box are props, but the documents that were on top are our insurance.

I also put on my monocle and, needing preparation, closed my eyes and smoked the cigarette once more. Then I took a deep breath and entered the room.

“Ah.”

My vision swayed wildly. I could immediately tell what the lever was. A book inserted in one side of the bookshelf was emitting pale yellow mist. Leonard, who realized the world’s colors were different, looked at me with slightly bewildered eyes. Like mine, the magic around Leonard’s monocle shook wildly as if it were alive and moving. Overall, the artifacts we currently wore showed much stronger colors and flows than that bookshelf lever. It’s clear that not much magic is invested in spatial magic artifacts.

Success. We succeeded here too. Archduchess Maria had directly touched Sarah Hohenfelss’s spatial movement artifact—that is, the lever—at that time, returned to Emmanuel’s mansion, and created a similar item. Then she made final improvements to the natural magic detector she had been temporarily developing. The problem is, as I thought before, Archduchess Maria isn’t exactly an orthodox magic scholar—strictly speaking, graduating from a magic department doesn’t make one a magic scholar—she’s close to what others would see as a fake magic scholar, doing everything in what appears to be an amateurish way and frequently using blood, so even knowing her production methods makes them difficult to implement. Therefore, I had already thought that knowing Archduchess Maria’s techniques wouldn’t be of much use to me. Emmanuel also learned, as seen in the labyrinth, that even if he learned Archduchess Maria’s techniques, putting his own blood in during production wouldn’t make them work properly. However… in Stadelheim, I learned that when I put my blood in, I could achieve results similar to or even better than Archduchess Maria’s case. The monocle with my blood is performing quite well, not much different from what I saw in the extra chapters.

Leonard asked.

“Is this what the astral plane looks like?”

“Part of it. Precisely, it lets you see with your eyes the action of magic that interferes with maintaining the natural world’s homeostasis.”

I took off the monocle again, put it in my chest pocket, and answered. Then, going back, what would happen if we pulled this lever? We’ve figured out that there’s a Pleroma in city hall, but there’s still a problem. What about security? There was no special security magic on the way here. There wasn’t even security magic on the room’s door handle. What are they trusting to act so boldly? A strategist should be able to think of this question and should think of it. Only then can you gauge what those guys planned and executed, and at least try to verify your guesses.

According to what Federal Legislator Alexander Kruger from Pleroma obtained and answered me, Pleroma has currently set their spatial magic security strongly. To prevent just anyone from entering and leaving Pleroma’s world, they made it so only baptized individuals can move around there without problems. If an unbaptized person visits, an alert goes to the relevant diocese.

When Pleroma wasn’t greatly troubled by external attacks, Pleroma let anyone enter and leave their dioceses. This phenomenon continued for a long time, entirely to facilitate missionary activities. They lure non-Pleroma into their world to build friendships. How do I know this? Gelda Asmann did this to me. Pleroma takes non-Pleroma to parties or solemn mass scenes to ease the wariness of the non-Pleroma they’re evangelizing and win their favor. They also forcibly turn people into Pleroma, but the best thing is always to move their hearts naturally without artifice. Loyal collaborators who wholeheartedly support Pleroma with their whole hearts without special devices may not matter right now, but in situations requiring sharp attention, they become more powerful personnel than anyone.

However, since the external situation became serious and major damage occurred from headquarters operations, they seem to have finally decided they need to strengthen security. We’re wearing over ten types of artifacts on our bodies, and the performance of the most important item among the artifacts installed under our clothes is this: we will be perceived as having received Pleroma’s baptism. To people? Well. To the system? Yes.

We collected the changed minute wavelengths by analyzing the magic before and after baptism of magic scholars freed from Pleroma. After gathering twenty this way, we could learn the obvious fact that the overlapping ranges were similar. We wore artifacts that could mimic the wavelengths.

What if the path is blocked right here?

Then we’d have to use one of two checkpoints. We made thorough preparations to prevent that, so we can only hope.

I threw off the conservative jacket that made me look like a civil servant, changed into a cassock, then raised my left hand to show and count while looking at Leonard. My right hand was placed on the leather book spine. When I finished counting—

We were somewhere else. I looked up at the high arched ceiling. This was Bamberg Cathedral used by the Bamberg Archdiocese and Eichstätt Diocese. Several people sat in chairs but didn’t notice us appearing from behind, and there was no one in clerical robes since mass had ended. They wouldn’t have gone far, so we needed to be careful. Fortunately, wearing cassocks with decorations around our necks bearing the cross symbol unique to Pleroma that I had seen in the Catacombs before, no one here paid attention to us. I put on my monocle again and looked at the world. Leonard, who had been wearing his monocle continuously, started moving first. As expected, there were levers near the altar. Even several of them. We could probably move to various places with each one.

Looking back, there was an animal-shaped stone carving on the statue where the holy water font was placed, and its color was different from the color of the statue below.

I first followed the path Leonard was taking through the cathedral’s seating aisle. Everyone sitting looked at us briefly but showed no reaction. They only prayed, handling the Bible spread on their knees and rosaries. I smiled and spoke within a sound-dampening spell.

“Enhanced security tends to be dangerous instead.”

“Hahaha.”

Leonard, who understood the meaning, laughs.

Why is it dangerous? ‘From now on, those who haven’t been baptized cannot be brought into our world’—so they think an alarm will naturally sound when non-Pleroma infiltrate their world! Therefore, we have no problems even if our clothing doesn’t match the location. For example, if we went to lay residential areas, cassocks wouldn’t be very appropriate clothing, but they wouldn’t be particularly problematic clothing either. Even if there were originally no problems, it becomes even safer.

The current time is 2:20. I surveyed the various positions of levers and spoke to Leonard under the sound-dampening spell.

“I’ll go check something out first.”

“Alone?”

“What if I end up entering a bishop’s office? It’s better to be alone when making excuses. Please check other things, Your Highness.”

“Alright. Let’s meet in an hour.”

Leonard said while tapping the communication artifact at his ear. He moved the candlestick on the altar and disappeared.

[Ah, this is Würzburg Cathedral.]

His muttering was heard immediately.

I looked at the object with a strange color alone in my vision. It was a key inserted in a drawer under the altar. Wondering whether I should turn it or pull it out, I turned it.

What unfolded before my eyes at that moment was really a bishop’s office. Fortunately, there was no one there, but then how did I know this was a bishop’s residence—because it was using a building that looked like a bishop’s residence to anyone. Bishop’s residences often looked like royal buildings. Former bishops had sufficient status to build large and splendid buildings.

If this was Bamberg’s bishop’s residence, it would be the New Palace with the rose garden that Ralph Huber mentioned. I quickly turned around to return the way I came, looking for any objects emitting dim light. There were three weight-like things hanging on the back door, which looked like simple decorations hung on doors to the naked eye. Through the monocle, they were surrounded by slightly blue mist.

There’s no guarantee that there would be a lever to return near the point I moved to, but in this structure of entering from outside to inside, visitors to the bishop’s residence would need a door to return to where they came from, so I could make an almost certain guess that these weights were objects for moving to Bamberg Cathedral.

Before returning, I approached the bishop’s desk to check the glowing objects. Unusually, there were many pens. A holder with ten quill pens inserted, a decorative fountain pen, and likewise a drawer with a key inserted. I opened other drawers. All opened easily except one. I strongly suspect the drawer that won’t open is a document box. That decorative fountain pen shows almost no signs of use. That means there aren’t many traces of being touched by hand.

The quill pens are probably levers for moving to other dioceses. The decorative fountain pen, I’ll have to think about it, but I suspect it’s a lever for moving to the Pleroma overall leadership assembly point.

Right under the table, in the wide drawer that usually stores letterhead, spare ink, and pens, there was another glowing object. To my left eye without the monocle, that lever looked like a porcelain ring box. Looking at the mess with flowers and ribbon-like decorations also rendered in porcelain, judging with 23 years of human experience, I suspect that touching that would move me to the space where Ralph Huber resides together, and since it’s probably correct, I decided absolutely not to touch it now.

The drawer with the key inserted seems to have been touched quite often. I turned it while gripping the documents tightly.

A document archive unfolded before my eyes.

It’s now 2:30. Still plenty of time. After checking the time, I drew my wand, changed it to a staff, then struck the floor a couple times. No signs of people could be heard. I whistled while preparing divine power.

—Seek and you shall find.

“6 o’clock.”

Too many documents glowed. I changed the search to ‘all of Germany.’ Same result again.

“Major announcement.”

The number clearly decreased, but when I actually pulled them out, they either weren’t related to today’s Easter 6 o’clock, or they mentioned today’s 6 o’clock announcement but didn’t reveal what the announcement content was. Since it’s top secret, it would be in the bishop’s desk drawer.

I immediately turned around and moved the misty door decoration. Returning to the bishop’s office, I pulled out one of the quill pens. The space changed as if nothing had happened.

As expected. I had already checked when there were many. It was a room that looked exactly like an office, but there was a nameplate on the desk with the position of Bishop of Speyer Diocese. I grabbed the iron flower decoration on the door to return the way I came. Returning to Bamberg’s bishop’s office, I picked up and put down another quill pen based on my previous smooth progress. This was also an office, and there was no one there. This is the office of the Bishop of Würzburg Diocese.

Seeing no people in the bishop’s residence, they must have all gone to a meeting or something, but if they’re planning to announce a discovery great enough to shake the world at 6 o’clock, they’d be busy around 2:50 now… I already expected this. That’s why I’m here at this time.

“Your Highness, if you can’t quickly find a lever to return, don’t go in. It’s fine to confront things on site.”

[I’ll keep that in mind.]

Leonard answered in a not-heavy tone. I thought the communication would end there, but after some wind-like sounds and sounds of objects moving, a calm voice was heard.

[This is quite enjoyable.]

I laughed. He seems to be getting around fine so far. It can’t be helped. Isn’t this the perfect time for activity? The perfect time for us to be active, that is.

Now what I ultimately want to find most is the location of the control room. Where should I go to control this diocese’s spatial magic? It would be best to reunite with Leonard and search together. As I learned from observing now, the dioceses—at least Bavaria diocese’s levers—are all patterned to reflect their respective uses. For example, levers going to the main church are attached to doors, and levers going to other diocesan bishops’ offices are clustered on multiple objects. However, while going to diocesan bishop offices with quill pens is easy, among Bavaria’s 8 dioceses, excluding Eichstätt, München-Freising, and this Bamberg leaves 6 dioceses, but there are 10, so I need to take some time to match dioceses with quill pen positions. The two times just now were lucky. I do have insurance, but there’s no need to use it carelessly.

First, I decided to move to the document archive again to look for other connected levers.

About 30 minutes later, we coincidentally met in a residential area.

“What’s this?”

At my reflexive question, Leo shrugged. He also had a face that said he didn’t know. Good expression of opinion. I gathered my wits and cast a sound-dampening spell before speaking. Casting sound-dampening spells when two or more people were present had become a habit, and we were obligated to do so.

“…I didn’t expect to meet here.”

“Neither did I. The passages must be connected.”

Even while saying this, Leonard stroked his chin with an expressionless face. I knew his face was expressionless in a different sense from composure and asked.

“What’s wrong?”

“I came to a residential area earlier too. A believer residential area. Naturally, there were many people there.”

“That would be natural. It’s Easter.”

“But there are no people here…”

I nodded and asked.

“What did you touch to come here?”

“First, I moved to the Cologne Archdiocese.”

Leonard asked while briefly recalling his memory.

“Then after that, I moved back to the Speyer Archdiocese.”

“Yes. So?”

“I touched the decoration on the door leading to the underground level of that palace.”

“Haha… Underground level. We’re on the same wavelength.”

Because I did the same thing. I deliberately didn’t touch the fountain pen on the desk since there seemed to be no way back or I might use my insurance too hastily, but why did I end up here just from touching one decoration on the underground level door of the bishop’s palace? This really shouldn’t happen, humanly speaking. I grumbled inwardly with a hollow laugh. However, since I actually did it knowing something was strange because the door decoration that should have been on the inside was attached to the outside, I couldn’t really complain.

Leonard laughed refreshingly upon learning that I had tried to approach the underground level of the bishop’s palace just like he had. I looked at the vast residential area and the natural environment beyond it and said.

“Then the purpose of this place is obvious. It’s a joint training ground. The problem is that we don’t clearly know the way out.”

The spatial magic is incredibly vast. I took out and put on reading glasses instead of the monocle I had used because I needed to check both the lever’s location and its actual appearance, but I couldn’t see any objects containing that strange mist. Maybe they would appear after moving around here a bit.

“Instead, if there’s one fortunate thing, it’s that there’s a high probability that a lever to exit the training ground is prepared.”

Leo said he was at the Cologne Archdiocese. The Cologne Archdiocese is outside Bavaria. Since what we touched was the lever at the bishop’s palace, bishops must have come and gone, and they had to go home anyway. In their coordinate system, couldn’t they just warp? Since this is a place where not only Pleroma from the Bavaria region bundled into one diocese but also Pleroma bishops from other dioceses gather, there’s a high possibility that the coordinate systems weren’t unified. Unless this was spatial magic extending arms in a radial pattern, there absolutely had to be a lever to return.

However, if they really applied technology like ‘spatial magic that can connect to all dioceses with different coordinate systems’ in this courtyard, there would be no answer.

“It’s fortunate that we at least have these glasses.”

Leonard said that and began speaking more casually.

“We shouldn’t get separated and should stick together here.”

“Exactly. Let’s run around and search.”

We ran straight ahead to the plaza. The plaza is circular with a total of eight roads, and we need to explore the alleys between them too, so we have to quickly find a way out. We numbered them clockwise from the front of the plaza and ran frantically. When we passed one road, the clock was pointing to 3:30. We passed the second road and the third road too. When we entered the end of the fourth road like that, what I saw was a peculiar sight.

An incredibly vast… plain. And it’s covered with ruins. It was somewhat like Pompeii. I wondered if this is what it would feel like if bombs were dropped on ancient Rome. We returned to the plaza again, and when we were passing the fifth road, Leo made a strange sound.

“We’ve been here before.”

“No, we haven’t.”

I looked at him with the expression of someone looking at a crazy person and squinted my eyes. Leo shook his head.

“We need to go back. I know. The way out of the residential area was at the plaza fountain.”

“Really? I definitely didn’t see it earlier…”

No matter how I looked, I thought there was nothing there earlier. I continued speaking while muttering, thinking I should calm down this crazy guy a bit.

“But it’s certain we can get out from here. You came from Cologne, right? Don’t panic and let’s go for now.”

Leonard shook his head at my words.

“Cologne? I didn’t go there. I was at the Diocese of Speyer.”

Did this guy get heatstroke? How did he wander around in this state? Can we even get back on time? I checked my watch while inwardly shocked.

“Why is it 3:50 right now?”

It was just 2:30 a moment ago. Ah, no. 3:50 is correct. Have I finally gone crazy too… I laughed and wiped my forehead. Leo’s expression was strange. No, his appearance was strange too. I pointed at Leo’s eyes and asked.

“Why are you wearing that monocle?”

Then Leo looked at me, frowned, and opened his mouth.

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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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