How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 555

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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 (555)

Seeing the dust being absorbed into my hand, Narke sat down beside me with a hardened expression. I finished my brief explanation and ended the call. When he placed his hand over my fingertips, a refreshing breeze penetrated to my bones. There had been no particular reaction from the dust that had seeped in earlier, but Narke’s thorough safety mindset was admirable. He also removed his gloves and touched the red dust.

“…Hmm?”

Narke made a thoughtful sound as he touched the powder still remaining on his hand. I doubted my eyes. The red powder on his hand wasn’t being absorbed and continued to maintain its vivid color. No matter how much Narke touched the soil with his hand, it simply fell lightly from his hand…

Unlike me. The back of my neck grew cold. I sprang up from my seat and touched my lips. All sorts of thoughts rushed through my head. Even as I walked deeper inside with my frantic vision, I continued to scan the floor. The dust caught between the tiles was slightly protruding onto the tiles. Of course it would be, it’s hard for a place where people come and go wearing shoes not to get dirty with soil. That’s why they have servants sweeping and cleaning morning and evening, isn’t it? I swept the wall with my hand. No red dust came off. No, maybe my hand absorbed it. I pressed my pure white cuffs against the wall and swept along it. Nothing. Only gray dust came off. I walked through the corridor without hesitation, heading toward the back door.

“Lucas!”

Narke, who had quickly followed, grabbed my shoulder. He spoke with a slightly confused expression in the corridor that was completely empty of people.

“On the surface, it’s just soil. Something like hematite…”

“Right.”

This kind of red soil is commonly found especially in areas with high iron content. It really looked like just soil to anyone. As Narke said, it was the color of hematite among iron oxides. I glanced down at Narke’s ring and answered firmly.

“But it’s not soil.”

It wasn’t absorbed by Narke’s hand, but it was absorbed by mine. And my temperament is a peculiarity among peculiarities that Narke doesn’t have.

Now I’m moving away from the moment of ‘maybe.’ Until now, I had been in an ambiguous zone of about 2/3 certainty and 1/3 doubt, so I had kept my words to myself—anyway, now that ‘that France’ had entered, there was no mage who wasn’t on guard about safety. Even without me, everyone was on high alert, and the arcane mages dispatched by the government were purifying various parts of the city with divine power while reporting to each other, and most police, regardless of whether they were humans or espers, were patrolling the city without rest—now I knew for certain. Not just suspicion, but a real problem was occurring.

Then because of whom?

Pleroma? France?

Just then, a sound came from the artifact at my ear. I received a contact from Mecklenburg.

* * *

The magical crime response team arrived quickly. Only one of them was allowed inside for now. Everyone waiting outside would carefully clean up this fake ‘iron oxide’ powder shortly.

But the mage sitting in front of us in a robe spoke with difficulty, his face showing he wasn’t quite sure.

“There’s no toxicity. At first glance, it appears to be iron oxide.”

I exchanged glances with Narke. This person was saying the same thing as Narke. Right now, he was looking up at me with an expression wondering how this could possibly be magical terrorism. Unlike him, Narke didn’t doubt me. Even if you’re close friends, who would believe you if you looked at dirt on the ground and said ‘this is evidence of terrorism’? So perhaps Narke had quickly made the same deduction I had, or maybe the intuition honed by abilities he’d used constantly since childhood made him trust me. If not that, he would have used insight…

The mage spoke in confusion.

“Actually, I’m doubtful whether it’s even a magic potion. If this dust is a magic potion… we’d have to assume it was made like an elixir, some kind of high-concentration solution that was cooled and ground up.”

“That would make sense. There’s no other way to store and operate mana from the outside.”

“Well, for us who aren’t Pleroma, there’s no other method.”

I silently knelt and looked down at the floor. The mage took out a bottle of water from his waist and continued.

“To find out if it’s a magic potion, we put that ground powder into a reagent and test whether mana is detected or not… Isn’t this just iron? There are newspapers and factories around here, and in times like these when spring winds are fierce, all kinds of powder could be carried around.”

“Please conduct the test. How do you know if even unusually high concentrations of natural mana might be detected?”

“Well, if this reagent detected natural mana, it would have already reacted strongly to what’s in the air… That’s not what’s important right now, Count Ascanien. This might be a bit disappointing, but this just looks like a lot because it’s mixed with dust, and the powder is too finely scattered for proper testing, so I don’t even know if we’ll get proper results.”

“Please do your best. The safety of our citizens depends on it.”

“Of course, I’ll do my best.”

The mage replied as he carefully poured the well-collected dust into the bottle.

The answer I heard shortly after was disappointingly predictable. The mage held out a bottle that had turned a pale red and was contaminated like muddy water. Dust had settled at the bottom, and the water, faintly reddened like dissolved rust powder, was murky with dust. Oil stains clung to the rim and surface with dust and short animal hair stuck to them. It was thoroughly dirty. It was fortunate that Mecklenburg hadn’t entered this place. The mage held out a dish where he had mixed that liquid with another liquid, shaking his head. He spoke as he put it in the sealed container he had brought.

“I collected as much as possible, but no mana is coming out. It’s just soil.”

My breath escaped in a puff. No mana had emerged… But despite that, the soil had melted away cleanly from my hand. There must be some kind of mechanism at work.

“As you can see, hematite is also used as a dye, so it can leave such deep color stains.”

The mage advised gently with an expression telling me to reconsider. He waited for my answer while glancing around with a troubled face. He was probably thinking, what kind of magical crime could this one bit of soil be? It wouldn’t be strange for him to think I was a mentally unstable young man who would mistake this bit of soil for sinister powder and report it.

“Count Ascanien. Is this magical crime?”

As expected, the mage asked me cautiously. I only tensed the corners of my mouth and didn’t reply.

But I couldn’t show them the abnormal reaction of the soil that only appeared to me right in front of their eyes. If they had any sense, it wouldn’t be difficult to figure out my temperament. Their thoroughness was an admirable ability.

Also, one more thing.

Among the people walking around the street, there was no one who had scattered this powder. Narke hadn’t used insight on me, but he hadn’t blocked his ability for other places either. Since he wasn’t Haike, his insight about places and objects could only obtain limited information and usually got information about objects by looking at the eyes of people related to those objects, but I was grateful that it didn’t completely fail to work. The fact that he hadn’t felt anything particularly strange while coming here was noteworthy. That meant there was no one among the people we encountered who had done anything particularly troubling to their mind. To digress briefly, for one’s mind to become uncomfortable, they would need to clearly know what they had done.

Returning to the main point, the culprit is extremely meticulous. Whatever method they used, they developed soil fine enough to escape inspection. At this point, I wondered if I was going crazy, but the soil had definitely seeped into my hand without a trace. I swept the soil with my finger once more. Nothing happened. Only the surface of skin swept by the dust felt an unpleasant sensation. It seemed like my fingertips were tingling as if small cells were pulling at blood vessels. Even so, it was less than the sensation of an ant bite, so it might be pain from imagination.

If it’s neither this nor that, then I must have become able to absorb even pure soil now. Like this response team mage finds strange, I think I’m crazy too. I sneered inwardly like that.

“That’s right. We need to clean it up thoroughly.”

Contrary to my inner thoughts, my mouth moved quietly. The ambiguous attitude from when the situation was uncertain, when I was reasoning alone, should no longer exist.

“All of it. Quietly, without telling anyone, we need to find out if this red soil has been scattered at destinations throughout Prussia.”

The mage looked increasingly incomprehensible. As he shook his head and tried to answer something, Narke, who had been standing beside us, spoke quietly.

“Count Ascanien was also the one who prevented terrorism during Penthalon, Your Excellency.”

“Ah.”

The mage frowned and nodded as if he hadn’t forgotten.

“Especially today is a day we need to be more careful, isn’t it?”

“Yes, of course I know.”

The mage, who had been looking troubled before answering, dropped water on the dust and seeing no reaction, poured more water. He nodded and tapped his ear.

* * *

The red powder at the rampage control center was cleaned up.

To ensure no one knew about this cleanup, the entire response team had to remove their uniforms and quietly warp around like ordinary people. Since there might be someone working with the culprit waiting around buildings everywhere, only a minimal number of personnel could check the situation after entering buildings and locking the doors, so they hadn’t been able to visit many places yet.

I returned to the banquet hall, drank while casting a sound-blocking spell, and spoke into the artifact at my ear.

“Was there no one who brought anything like soil?”

I was now switching lines to contact an employee who had just arrived at the foreign ministry building to inspect the belongings of foreigners.

[That’s strange. There wasn’t.]

“Not even flowerpots?”

[Of course. Who would bring such things?]

“Are you certain you opened and checked all belongings?”

[Of course. We even opened the lockets they wore around their necks. As you instructed, we confiscated all liquids and boxes that couldn’t be opened.]

Hmm…

I couldn’t ask any more at this point. If they said no, I didn’t have the luxury to waste time pressing them.

I finished the contact with thanks, pretending to talk with Narke beside me. The Italians occasionally peeked over looking for Narke, who could communicate with them, but Narke sent them away with apologetic smiles.

Mecklenburg had just arrived. He stood beside me with a serious expression, as if asking when he had ever been wide-eyed and flustered. I expanded the range of the sound-blocking spell that surrounded us like a hemispherical barrier and said.

“Have all the foreigners arrived here?”

“All of them. But they’re moving to the dining room.”

“Already?”

“You’re saying ‘already’ too. It’s late. That person called Gramont and those team members deliberately arrived at the time to go straight to the dining room. Not coming at all would be a security threat as foreign mages not following order.”

“Good. Then we need to seal the building without anyone knowing. Also, we need to inspect the belongings of the Frenchman currently in the banquet hall—”

“But wait a moment…”

Mecklenburg spoke with a troubled expression. It was the same expression as the mage I saw earlier. He looked down and asked in the least offensive tone possible.

“On what grounds?”

I let out a short sigh and shook my head.

It was reasonable for him to ask that. It was already remarkable that Mecklenburg continued to stay alert and go along with me instead of scolding me asking if I was making false reports or if I was sane. After all, to them it was just ordinary rust powder that didn’t seep into skin.

At this point, I too began to doubt whether I had made some error somewhere, whether the soil that only seeped into my hand might not be sinister powder made from magic potions…

No, no.

First, looking at the results, I couldn’t overlook that soil. Then, in a situation where only I could feel the problem with the soil, to persuade them I had to explain what my reasoning had been all along.

I stroked my chin and opened my mouth.

“First, Senior. I wondered why they sent high school students.”

“You’re also a high school student…”

Since Mecklenburg was talking nonsense, I cut off his words sharply.

“No, our 101st class is a special case. In Germany’s case, where the special cult group called Pleroma was rampant, we were summoned under emergency mobilization orders. France, on the other hand, is not like that. While Académie Puissance focuses on academics unlike our Imperial Mage Alliance, so it’s not strange for high school students to be employed, there’s no reason to send high school student mages to diplomacy. Of course, it might be excessive worry.”

“So?”

“There’s no reason to refuse them either. It would be good for our side to have high school students come too. If they’re equally outstanding talents anyway, it’s better for those with less experience to look around than for experienced scholars to inspect factories. So we permitted entry but… wanted to watch how they behaved.”

“So that’s why you’ve been looking around since earlier.”

“That’s right. To know whether they’re here or not, that is, whether they’re slipping away through other routes. And I spoke with Mr. Esperanza Lafayette earlier. He said they sent even high school students here to prevent the growing voices of socialists in France from intensifying dissatisfaction.”

“That makes sense. France is extremely sensitive to socialism.”

“As you know, Senior, it’s to prevent a new Paris Commune from forming. The Orleans family had to establish an empire without much difficulty, but they would have had to prevent citizens from uniting again to establish their own government. I accepted this much. As you’ve interfered so much that you know well, I also spoke with Mr. Antonie Gramont.”

Then Mecklenburg narrowed his eyes as if asking why I was saying something to him. At least he knows what I’m talking about. I continued like a machine gun.

“Previously, Mr. Gramont had picked a fight with me, but it was actually a personal matter. It didn’t develop into a big problem and Gramont just went back to France after being eager to compete with me alone. But he said he was suspended and then reinstated because of that.”

“Hmm?”

“Don’t adults know so many things? How did the adults in France know that Antonie Gramont harbored resentment toward Lucas Ascanien?”

Mecklenburg also seemed bothered by this as he raised his eyebrows. I continued.

“Mr. Gramont said it was just because a lot showed in his expression. That he’s always being questioned. But… It’s insufficient. Mr. Gramont didn’t directly harm me. He was sarcastic, but about as much as you, Senior. Even less than that. It didn’t become a big commotion, so how would the adults know?”

“What did he say?”

“It’s not something that warrants suspension of qualifications.”

In other words, it wasn’t a situation that adults would need to know deeply about. Then isn’t there one person who comes to mind from the House of Orléans at this time? I looked straight at him and continued speaking.

“A reprimand would be appropriate. Especially since the high school students will grow up to become university students, and the university students will become research students. Gramont was the top student in the high school division. Why would you recklessly expel a student who will become a great figure leading France’s future, especially one from a perfectly respectable noble family, for whose benefit? Aren’t you sorry to waste that tremendous magical power and outstanding capabilities? If he had truly done something wrong, that would be different, but it wasn’t that serious a matter. If a mage’s career were to end just because he made snide remarks to an enemy peer mage, then with Antonie Gramont’s personality, he would have talked back to a French noble teacher at least once, and he should have been expelled from Académie Puissance then instead.”

Silence flows. Mecklenburg asked.

“Then what did that student do wrong to get his qualifications suspended?”

“Antonie Gramont did one thing wrong. He got entangled with Lucas Ascanien and left bad feelings between them.”

Mecklenburg furrowed his brow. Narke turned his gaze away.

“And the reason the Imperial Court pressured Académie Puissance to suspend Antonie Gramont’s qualifications was because they intended to use that student as a chess piece. The reason they reinstated him was because he was going to die today.”

A chess piece to eliminate both me and Germany at once.

Then Mecklenburg’s eyes widened before he pressed his forehead as if his head hurt. He grimaced and groaned.

“I understand…”

“They planned to kill Gramont at the rampage control center today. Then they were going to pin the blame for that crime on the German Empire. They had to raise his value again before he died. That’s why he was reinstated.”

“But the dates don’t match. Are you saying France has been drawing this picture for a long time?”

Mecklenburg spread his hands in rebuttal, but on the contrary, I had no intention of arguing back.

“You’re perceptive.”

“What…”

“Not now. Anyway, that’s why the Académie Puissance high school division came here. Probably only Antonie Gramont will die, but each person is precious manpower. Then why did the rest come? They came here to create the image of minor students who barely survived from the shameless terrorist nation of Germany. Of course, this is just speculation – there might be more who will die.”

Mecklenburg now rubbed his face dry. He sighed with a bloodless face. Narke remains silent. I glanced at them and continued speaking.

“By the same logic, there might be non-French who will die today. The Englishman would be quite dangerous. Wouldn’t that be a good way to worsen relations between Germany and Britain?”

“…”

“The French Imperial Family did anything to bring Germany to its knees. The only rational reason to drive the most outstanding talent, Gramont, to his death is me, but the reason they’re targeting me… whatever it may be, if that too is to attack Germany, then it makes sense. The French are more wary of me than other foreigners. They want to keep believing I’m Pleroma. In that sense, Antonie Gramont is a chess piece to send me to the other world. Whether he knows it himself or not.”

“Then the reason you keep obsessing over that dust is…”

That’s first because no matter how much spring wind blows, iron powder from nearby newspapers or factories doesn’t usually cross building gates to end up on indoor corridor floors, and second because it definitely absorbed into my hands without a trace. That’s not ordinary soil. It’s soil that’s been rigged with something.

“The iron powder I saw earlier might be the base for executing that plan. At least I can tell you that it’s not ordinary dust. If you combine these two circumstances, you’ll understand why I believe this place must be sealed off.”

Mecklenburg nodded for now. Even so, he muttered as if his head hurt.

“I understand you have some basis, but how exactly are they supposed to die?”

Regarding that, I could mention that it’s concerning how Gramont briefly tried to meet me again before the banquet ended, but not now.

“I don’t know how things will unfold. First, under the premise that the soil is problematic, if the culprit brought soil, it could explode here in this banquet hall. But if the culprit didn’t bring soil, it would be enough to simply not send these French people to their next destination. However, considering the possibility that the culprit brought soil, herding them together in one place is suicidal… We don’t know what kind of work that soil does, or how it breaks out of its ‘just soil’ state, but if it’s the work of the most likely candidate, the French Imperial Family, then that soil certainly isn’t something made simply for crafts, is it? It’s something made to harm someone. That soil was simply ‘not activated’ when I saw it.”

Also, what about the possibility that someone other than Gramont was used as a backup? Or what if it wasn’t backup but two, three, or more from the beginning?

Mecklenburg barely opened his mouth.

“…There are limits to keeping these people confined to the banquet hall and dining building. If we drag things out indecisively until we find a solution, they’ll think we’re stalling for time because we have nothing more to show them. The French are trying to create bad public opinion, but people from other countries aren’t agreeing with that, which is why we have the current atmosphere. But if this continues, people from other countries will also misunderstand.”

“It can’t be helped. Still, since we’re in a situation where we mustn’t show the enemy that we’ve discovered something strange, just have the guards personally prevent them from going out. And, a map.”

Bring me a map. I conveyed this to Mecklenburg with my eyes and entered a small room attached to the banquet hall. Mecklenburg returned with a map. As soon as he came, I cast a sound-blocking spell and spoke to Narke and Mecklenburg.

“We need to consider the case where there’s more than one target. Among the French who came today, who has the lowest performance?”

“Laurent Boguet, a research division mage.”

Mecklenburg answered. I nodded and found where Laurent Boguet would go next in the documents Mecklenburg handed over, then stuck a pin in the map.

“Among the English?”

“We’ll have to find that out from now on. You would know better.”

I nodded and stuck pins in the locations of two people who roughly came to mind.

“Among these three pins, where are there socialist-related facilities? We have the people, and now you would know Berlin’s geography better than me, Senior.”

“Socialist? Suddenly?”

“Hmm…”

I pondered how to explain and said.

“I haven’t connected all the reasoning either. There’s content I haven’t fully connected due to insufficient clues.”

“What is it? Just say it.”

“Actually, my initial reasoning was different from what I just said. It only became two reasonings later.”

When I brought up this story, Narke, who had been silent, tilted his head. Seeing his signal of attention, I continued speaking.

“They planned to catch two rabbits. I mentioned earlier that French socialists have increased. From the Imperial Court’s perspective, they’re troublemakers.”

“That would be so.”

“For whatever reason, Antonie Gramont ended up going to a location near Germany’s Social Democratic Party newspaper office. To find out why they tried to send him to the rampage control center, we need to contact the Foreign Ministry again. We’ll do that in a bit, but for now let’s talk under the premise that they sent Antonie Gramont to the rampage control center.”

Mecklenburg just nodded slightly. Understanding his request, I poured out words like a machine gun.

“France doesn’t want socialists to raise their voices. They don’t want socialism to have a good influence among citizens. At this time, there’s a way to prove the security gaps of the external enemy, the German Empire, while simultaneously turning the internal enemy, the socialists, into enemies.”

“Ah.”

Mecklenburg’s expression gradually sours. I continued speaking while tapping the table little by little.

“Precisely by conceiving of a German socialist Pleroma.”

Ideology transcends borders. ‘Germany’ attacked France’s future – this also makes possible the propaganda that Germany’s ‘socialists’ attacked ‘France’s’ future.

“However, this logic conflicts with the reasoning that they’re trying to frame me as the culprit, but judging by the location choice, it’s sufficiently meaningful. Therefore, I will now narrow down both options on this map.”

“Hah…”

Mecklenburg exhaled and turned his head. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but he seemed overwhelmed by the situation. Narke has been silently looking down at the map the whole time. He too must be reasoning something in his own way.

Then, contact came through the artifact at my ear. I tapped the artifact, and immediately an unfamiliar voice pierced my eardrums.

[Count Ascanien, it’s blood.]

“Pardon?”

[Ah, this is the Magical Crime Processing Unit. The iron powder you mentioned. It was powder made by cooling blood and grinding it finely. The shape of the red blood cells was already destroyed, but hemoglobin and albumin were detected. It looks likely to be blood… No. Yes, it’s practically correct to consider it blood.]

I stayed still for a long time, then grimaced and slowly shook my head.

“Blood, you say.”

The powder that ‘absorbed’ into my skin without a trace comes vividly to mind. A reaction I couldn’t see in Narke’s hands. But no magical power was detected in the blood… Was the amount too small for even reagents to properly detect, but I caught it? Above all, wasn’t it supposed to function only when swallowed through the esophagus? I knew there were some exceptions. What I’m turning away from – the day I blew away half the Pleroma parish, and what happened during the match with Gabrielle Caetani, they’re telling me, so surely I don’t turn everything that touches me into… The image of all things hardening into gold flashes across my retina as if I’d seen it directly. I forcibly suppressed the esophagus and tongue that were churning from the sudden surge of disgust and muttered.

“Animal blood or human blood?”

[It’s hard to tell because it was frozen and crushed. Serum analysis and crystal testing are impossible due to seriously compromised reliability from the freezing and crushing process.]

My head was throbbing, so I widened my eyes and pressed my temples. Mecklenburg swallows saliva without even listening to what’s being said. I moved my lips.

“Powder made from frozen and crushed blood was scattered on the street?”

[That’s right, Count. I too would like to ask.]

The scientist’s voice – confused but still not feeling any sense of reality – carries anxious curiosity through the artifact.

[What is happening in Berlin?]

Crash…

A single gust of wind in the darkness brushes past the muslin curtains. Vibrations come from the north of Berlin’s Mitte district. A chilling silence is here. We looked at each other, feeling our cheeks freeze.

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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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