How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 570

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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 (570)

I don’t even know where to begin pointing out the problems. This is beyond absurd. I gestured toward the ground as if throwing my hands up and asked.

“Who buys lottery tickets in Rome, which is ruled by the Papal States?”

Ulrike must have anticipated I would react this way, as he countered with such vigor he was practically spitting.

“Hey! Narke said it’s legal. The Catholic Church of our era isn’t the same as the old Catholic Church. Look! The Roman lottery has been officially introduced too.”

Ulrike thrust forward a lottery ticket stamped with the official seal of a lottery supervisor. I don’t have enough background knowledge to understand what he’s talking about, but since he mentioned the Roman lottery, it must be a system where each region independently draws numbers. In an era where immediate long-distance communication networks weren’t widely established, that would be the most reasonable approach. Yes, long-distance…

“…When is this announced? You bought this here in Rome, but you have to return to Germany soon, right?”

“When we go back, we’ll subscribe to Roman newspapers. If we win, we’ll come here immediately without thinking twice. And even if we don’t discover the winning numbers ourselves, Narke has an information network that will relay them to us. So hurry up and call them out! Five numbers!”

“No—”

“Quickly! I’m staying here until you call them out.”

“Yeah, call them out quickly.”

Narke chimed in with a smiling face. I had no choice but to say whatever came to mind.

“1, 90, 7, 19, 37. Is it okay for minors to do this?”

“1, 90, 7… Okay! There’s no rule saying it’s not allowed. Besides, we’ll be adults soon.”

Ulrike proudly thumped his chest.

“You’re not yet though.”

“Our bodies are fully grown.”

“What? Go ask around. See what age people think you are.”

These kids who haven’t even lost their baby fat yet… I was overwhelmed with the urge to pinch Ulrike’s chubby—relatively speaking compared to his lanky body—cheeks, but lying down, my arms couldn’t reach, so I held back. Ulrike was already mentally elsewhere and answered absentmindedly.

“That won’t work. Even when we’re 30, we won’t be considered our actual age. I’ll be right back, just a moment!”

Ulrike ran off, moving his lips as he repeated the memorized numbers.

Still, with even a supervisor present, they probably wouldn’t just ignore age restrictions and give permission carelessly. Though it might be a time when such restrictions didn’t exist yet. Ulrike quickly returned and handed me a copy. Then he looked at Leonard.

“Leo, what about you?”

“If I say I won’t do it, you’ll refuse to leave here again, won’t you.”

“Right. If you can’t think of anything, should I help you out? What dreams have you had recently?”

“Dreams?”

“There’s a book called ‘The Book of Dreams,’ and Italians use this book to find numbers for lottery tickets. So if you dreamed of picking flowers today, you’d choose number 56.”

“Hmm… You wouldn’t know that book as a German. I suppose Narke is helping you?”

“Yep!”

At Ulrike’s confident answer, Leonard pulled Narke’s ear close and whispered. Narke, who had been listening attentively with his gaze slightly lowered, nodded and dragged Ulrike to the shop. As expected, Ulrike returned quickly and pulled my bed while making dreamy sounds as if eager to go somewhere else.

“What should we do if we win? Should I ask to be included in whatever Elias is planning?”

“So you think Elias is planning something.”

I said with a hollow laugh.

“Of course. Just last year, he disappeared for months during the semester without a word. He went traveling alone for weeks on end. This week-long trip is nothing in comparison. So there’s no way he’s just sitting still, right?”

“I’d like him to just keep resting this time.”

Leonard said with a tired expression, sighing. Julia seemed unconcerned about whatever Elias might be up to, looking elsewhere. Ulrike moved away from thoughts of Elias, who was presumably making travel plans right now, and spoke about his plans after receiving the prize money.

“If we win, I’ll build a library for citizens in the city. A library where you can freely play card games.”

“Would that really be a library?”

“No, Lucas. Once it’s built, you’ll love it the most. You’ll sweep away everything that’s bet in games.”

“But Luise, maybe you don’t know since lottery isn’t as popular in Germany, but this isn’t a game you win easily. There are plenty of people who never win even if they play their whole lives.”

“That’s what they say?! But let’s dream a little!”

For something like that, he was too specifically excited, so Leonard and I couldn’t easily speak up. I looked back toward where Narke was and gestured for him to do something about Ulrike. Why did you fill the kid with hope? From now on, Ulrike will only wait for the drawing night, so what are you going to do now? Narke also seemed not to have expected Ulrike to have such high expectations, as he smiled somewhat awkwardly and touched his lips.

* * *

“Where is this place now?!”

Ulrike arrived at a street brightly lit with illumination that pierced the darkness. The place Narke had brought us to was a market located a bit further away.

“Trastevere. There’s a market that only opens at night. It’s only been a week since Easter, so it should be open… Ah, there it is.”

Narke, who had been cutting through the crowd without hesitation—people gave way easily, probably because it was strange to see a bed moving down the street—stopped in front of a stage-like shop and clapped his hands. People were sitting at tables set up on the street. In front of them were papers with numbers written on them.

Ulrike, who whispered that there was a lottery inspector here too, looked around the tables and inside the shop and asked cautiously.

“Narke, what is this?”

“This is also a game using numbers 1 to 90. How many sheets do you want to buy? Six sheets?”

“What is it exactly… Alright, six sheets.”

“Please give us thirty cartella. We want to distribute six sheets each to our friends. And how much is the total prize money?”

After briefly talking with the owner, Narke brought back cards with numbers and distributed them to everyone. I sat up slightly and received a piece of charcoal the size of my pinky finger and paper.

The paper Narke gave me had numbers written in 3 rows and 9 columns, but not all spaces were filled—there were only fifteen numbers with the rest being blank spaces. The numbers seemed random, but the tens digit changed sequentially for each column.

Then someone looked at me intently and asked his friends.

“I say, why is that person lying in a bed?”

Though I’m not fluent in Italian, I understood that much. Feeling awkward, I pretended not to understand, and Narke answered something while suppressing laughter. The man quickly said “Ah~” and backed away, then repeated what Narke had said to the people around him. It’s absurd how they all nodded with faces of understanding. They might find me absurd to look at, but my position is this.

“Well, there’s still a little time before the game starts, so shall we go do something else?”

Narke said, pushing our backs. Ulrike naturally nodded vigorously, ran around here and there by himself, then after a while took us to a clothing store. With Narke’s help, he paid and came out wearing a beige suit.

“How is it?!”

It’s just clothes, what else. It suited him well. When I nodded to convey that meaning, Ulrike frowned and whispered to us.

“This is bright-colored clothing I could hardly wear in Germany. Do Italians originally wear such bright-colored clothes?”

Then Narke rolled his eyes and asked.

“Does it look that different?”

“Of course! If you take black away from Germans, they’re corpses, but here there seems to be a lot to wear besides black. Even brown suits aren’t close to black but in brighter tones. The clothes seem thinner too.”

“Well, unlike cold Germany, it’s relatively always warm here~”

“Ah, that’s right. So, look at this, do I look Italian?”

Ulrike spun around in a circle, urging us to answer. When no one answered, Narke alone smiled and responded.

“Yes. You’d just need curly hair.”

“Ooh… Isn’t there a place that can curl it?”

“No, you don’t need to copy everything like that.”

Since it seemed like Ulrike would run around looking for a hair salon again, Leonard quickly stopped him. Perhaps because there were hardly any open shops outside the market at this hour, Narke also quickly agreed with Leonard’s words.

“Right, that’s true~ Not all Italians have curly hair. Just look at me—mine isn’t that extreme.”

“That’s true too… My hair is thin, so it would be difficult to make it curl in the traditional way anyway.”

Everyone nodded and smiled. Ulrike whistled as he held various accessories from this clothing store up to himself. The gazes of the other friends and myself occasionally met.

Actually, there’s something here that no one mentions for Ulrike’s sake. No matter what he did, he didn’t really look Italian. It’s just a tendency, but Germans tend to have sturdier builds among Europeans, while southern Italians are more agile and slightly shorter on average in comparison. Espers don’t deviate much from this either, because fundamentally Espers are products of Humans and were created by combining Humans’ aesthetic standards with practical-economic-religious criteria. Espers focus on the fact that they are independent life forms, so they might not easily accept this fact, but from my perspective, Humans’ needs and standards played too large a role.

The German Human ancestors who first conceived of Espers thought that sturdy builds like theirs were ideal to look at, while Italian Human ancestors believed that moderately balanced bodies like theirs were more ideal to look at than unconditionally large builds. This difference has been diminishing among Esper generations due to globalization influences, but still remains somewhat, and remains even more significantly in people’s perceptions.

As a result, contrary to his own admiration for Italy, Ulrike had an exceptional build and light melanin pigmentation, making him look like a typical northern European. His slightly beige-looking light hair was especially rare to see in Italy. However, looking at that expression, he doesn’t seem to think so himself—Ulrike seemed filled with expectation of being mistaken for an Italian for some reason. And Narke was watching such an Ulrike while desperately holding back laughter.

“This is delightful…”

“Just laugh.”

“It’s just nice to see. It was worth bringing him.”

Narke isn’t particularly patriotic either, and even now he didn’t seem to be happy for ethnic reasons. Instead, he seemed pleased that Ulrike was enjoying himself. We all felt the same way. Narke clapped his hands to focus his friends’ attention.

“Let’s head back now, guys. It’s almost the hour, so the game will start.”

Ulrike followed with light steps, pulling my bed while asking.

“Narke, but why are your eyes so much brighter than the people here?”

“Well. Because I’m a mage? Asian mages also have bright-colored eyes.”

“Ah~ That’s right. That’s right.”

Now it seemed that even to Ulrike’s eyes, it was becoming noticeable that Italians generally had darker-colored eyes, unlike Germans. Ulrike’s green eyes were common even among German non-mages, so he probably hadn’t felt much external difference between non-mages and himself. He would have known that this was proof that it was hard to look Italian, but Ulrike wasn’t particularly disheartened and was still humming.

When we returned to the original shop and outdoor stage, not long after, the bell sound announcing the hour rang. The host stood in the center of the floor where tables were gathered. Narke, who had seated all his friends at tables, looked around at us and whispered.

“Alright, guys. Now when numbers are called, just check them on your paper.”

“Then what?”

At Ulrike’s question, Narke winked as if to say just wait and see. The host said something in very fast Italian, then struck a pose as if about to make some announcement. He solemnly put his hand into a bag, then pulled out a ball and shouted.

“23!”

With six sheets of paper, it’s chaotic. I quickly scanned the second column of all six sheets, but there was no 23 on my papers. The host counted with his fingers, then shouted the second number.

“71.”

“Huh? I already got two right.”

Ulrike said with sharp, alert eyes. Then Narke grabbed Ulrike’s hand and shouted.

“Ambo!”

“Oh!”

The host exclaimed busily with admiration, took Ulrike’s paper, clapped his hands, and wrote the table number on the blackboard behind him. Not knowing the rules, we all looked at Narke in bewilderment.

“What?”

“You were the first to connect two numbers in a row. When it’s over, you’ll get 5% of the total prize money.”

“What!”

Ulrike gaped in shock. Having learned the rules, Ulrike gripped his pen with more serious eyes. He was wide-eyed as if attending a lecture.

However, while the numbers were called about ten more times, no one from our table was the first to match three numbers in a row, nor four numbers in a row. Only two possibilities remained for receiving prize money: being the first to match all five numbers in a row, or matching all 15 numbers.

I had already matched four numbers in one row, but since I wasn’t the first, I didn’t receive any prize money. I hadn’t been greedy for the prize money to begin with. Although I hadn’t come here by my own will, just lying on the street on a bed seemed like I’d already indulged all the luxury I could ask for. I was listlessly watching my friends’ papers. Everyone was pretending not to care while taking it seriously. Narke was the most relaxed and carefree, probably because…

“14–!”

“I got a line!”

When Ulrike covered his mouth and shouted, Narke smiled, raised his hand to show, and spoke in Italian.

“Cinquina!”

“Cinquina? What does that mean now?”

“You get 20% of the prize money.”

“Huuuugh.”

The reason Narke was so relaxed was probably because, among the 30 cards he received to give Ulrike a victory, he had given Ulrike the paper that looked most promising. That intuition, insight, and foresight ability was shining here. While we chuckled hollowly at Narke after roughly catching on, Narke calmly handed Ulrike’s paper to the host. The host looked at it, clapped his hands, and recorded the table number on the back. Ulrike rubbed his hands together, licked his lips with his tongue, and pressed his body close to the table.

“Good. Now let’s go for the full house.”

But Narke gave a meaningful smile at those words.

As expected, no one matched all the numbers. When it was time to settle the prize money, Ulrike grinned from ear to ear as he received money from the shop owner. He seemed happy to have won the second-largest category.

“110 lira!”

Ulrike shook his coin purse at us with a laugh. While I don’t know much about Papal States lira currency, I know this much—Ulrike had just won what others make in a month or two of wages. I casually threw out a comment.

“Now use that to build a card game library.”

“Not a chance.”

Ulrike’s realistic response left me speechless. As I looked down, Julia patted my shoulder. Ulrike stroked his chin, lost in thought, then whispered to Narke. He entrusted the money pouch to me and pointed toward the end of the market.

“Let’s put this aside for now. We don’t have time! Let’s go do something else!”

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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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