How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 582

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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 (582)

A child who hates being called Your Highness is born under a saint who hates being called Your Highness. The consciousness that forms Leonard had been taking shape since the 1850s.

Hildegart Wittelsbach’s face overlaps with Leonard’s face, who had looked displeased upon hearing the title of prince. Though their faces weren’t identical like copies, the movement of their facial muscles and the atmosphere of expressions created by them were remarkably similar. Even the cold gaze that made one want to avoid eye contact was exactly the same. Really… he inherited so much. Seeing my pupils shake, Hildegart Wittelsbach looked down at me teasingly, lowering her gaze and moving her eyes along where the iris flickered, then quickly became indifferent and looked down at me. I almost let out a hollow laugh. Even this resembled Leonard Wittelsbach. Honestly, wouldn’t you not teach such things to your child? This composure was inherited without even dying.

Unable to easily answer and frozen by seeing fragments of Leonard reflected in him—the same nature that Leonard inherited from his saint and now belonged unmistakably to both of them, Hildegart Wittelsbach smiled crookedly and said indifferently.

“Finished staring?”

Yes, this. This is exactly the kind of words and expression Leonard would make. Both my friend, 17-year-old Leonard, and the novel’s protagonist, 27-year-old Leonard. Leonard had studied long to refine his uniquely unparalleled temperament so it wouldn’t show—though thinking about it, it not showing my ass, I have countless memories of being dumbfounded and dragged along by that bastard’s temper—honestly speaking, the Leonard I knew before falling into 1897 acted like this in everything. Especially Leonard in his twenties with Elias was much more cynical, never smiling, always maintaining an expressionless face while saying such things. Even Elias couldn’t act shamelessly toward such a Leonard, and didn’t. As they continued to grow and change, their twenties were markedly different from their current teenage selves that I knew, so dry and desolate that I couldn’t recall their current appearance, and if it hadn’t been so, I wouldn’t have continued reading that book. At the time, I was someone who would never decide with my own hands to turn the pages of a book containing the universal model of friendship.

Gradually, the university students in the courtyard slow their steps. It feels like stage lights are shining down on our heads.

I closed my eyes tightly once, then looked down and answered.

“…I understand. Your Highness Hildegart Wittelsbach.”

“Then you must also know that I don’t wish to hear ‘Your Highness the Prince’ within the school.”

Of course I know, your child had the exact same thoughts and said similar words. But I don’t know how I should respond. I pretended to be troubled while simultaneously avoiding his gaze due to the inexplicable pressure Hildegart Wittelsbach emanated, and said.

“Well then. What should I call you?”

“Well. I don’t know either, Count Laplace.”

“…Yes, Count Wittelsbach.”

This sarcastic skill is also exactly like someone else… Really, there’s no way he would have taught such things, yet how can they be so similar.

It’s increasingly shocking that separate beings can look so similar yet be different people. What’s surprising is that despite being so alike, there’s no feeling that their relationship is vertical or subordinate. Perhaps that’s because this nature isn’t Leonard’s ‘mother’s thing’ but ‘my thing’—that is, it wasn’t something taught or learned but something he possessed from birth, so there was no subordinate consciousness when living.

Similarly, Hildegart Wittelsbach probably didn’t think of his nature inherited from ancestors as belonging to ancestors rather than himself. Thanks to this, two completely separate beings exist as they are to me while resembling each other like twins. For unknown reasons, my mind gradually became distant, so I swept back my fallen hair while pressing firmly under my eyes with my palm. Even as I intentionally showed my restlessness, Hildegart Wittelsbach observed me silently without a word. After he was the one who first asked if I was done staring. I quietly asked, recalling how he had naturally called me Count Laplace.

“Do you know my name?”

“Is there anyone at this school who doesn’t know you?”

So there was no one-on-one interaction between Hildegart Wittelsbach and Lucas Laplace.

Then am I famous for getting beaten up? Or what am I famous for? Is it really that noteworthy for a French exchange student to be in the department where a nation’s future monarch studies? It’s not like there are rumors about eating blood like Luca?

Anyway, to hear this for the second time, in all my life… I’ve never played a role without friends, even because of my appearance, yet I’ve been given such a role twice. Since I’ve never actually experienced being friendless at school, I’m not certain whether school outcasts have such a famous position. When teachers ask if there are any isolated friends in class, though there are friends who come to mind, that’s within one class—normally you wouldn’t know the names of friendless students in other classes.

Most importantly, the school I attended didn’t have such serious physical violence in bullying, so I’m even more confused in grasping background information—whether Lucas Laplace has rumors like Lucas Ascanien, or if he’s just famous as a Frenchman who gets beaten up.

Hildegart Wittelsbach smiled with a bored expression and said sarcastically.

“The French take a couple hours even for meals… Now I’m getting the picture.”

Similarly familiar tone, familiar expressions, familiar coldness… However, in terms of reinforcing ethnic distinctions, he’s a bit more raw than Leonard Wittelsbach. As time passes, educational standards change, so that’s understandable. Whether due to his momentum or some other problem, I felt a strange suppression while playing dumb at his sarcasm telling me to stop analyzing and answer quickly.

“…I’m not sure what that means, but I understand for now. What business do you have with me?”

“I saw you running around for the first time today.”

“I apologize. My dignity—”

“No, you’re wrong. Would that be the issue?”

Hildegart Wittelsbach, who had been speaking casually, muttered while lowering his head toward me.

“How did you escape?”

I continued staring into his eyes, reading the familiar warmth melted in that cold gaze. How did you escape from those Germans earlier? How could you overcome them with force and run out? Hildegart Wittelsbach nodded his head as if telling me to speak up. The scanning pupils were familiar yet made my spine tingle anew. I looked into his eyes and whispered without blinking once.

“Did you watch me being bullied while knowing about it?”

“This attitude.”

I felt a slight pain in my left chest. Hildegart Wittelsbach pressed his finger against my jacket and answered.

“I’m seeing this attitude for the first time today.”

I pressed my lips tightly, closed my eyes, then reflexively exhaled and looked up. Instantaneous judgment had already taken hold in my head. Damn it… Should I be grateful for this? Or not…

His tone and attitude need no further mention. Even not extending a hand to someone not worth saving is the same as Leonard. Leonard is a utilitarian. His gaze doesn’t carelessly turn toward individuals. Even when he was thinking of Narke while talking with me before coming here, he quickly erased her from his mind and moved on to French pharmaceuticals for the same reason. He places Narke on the game board but regards her with no greater weight than other battles he’s taken on—competitive spirit takes the place of special affection. Except for slight persistence toward his childhood friend, Leonard Wittelsbach still thinks quite neutrally about Elias and was more objective in the future than I predicted.

The balance of not being swayed by emotions was the very quality that led Bavaria to become the de facto leader of the German Empire in the future, so it’s not strange that Hildegart Wittelsbach, who laid the foundation a generation earlier, shows such nature. Rather, the realization that I hadn’t foreseen this fact in advance made me want to laugh hollowly. If everyone was accustomed to seeing trees, rulers had to see both forests and trees. Hildegart Wittelsbach is a utilitarian with talent for the macro, just as he passed on to his child and inherited from his predecessor. He thinks economically and has clear subjectivity. According to his subjectivity, I am a young man so lacking in ability to cope with adversity that I cannot even perform minimal self-defense, so there’s no need for him to use the resource of time to rescue me.

And then, he doesn’t hesitate to intervene in matters that pique his interest.

…I knew when this intervention occurred. My throat grew increasingly dry. What did I do?—such questions are actually of no help at all. I had already clearly grasped the cause and effect. Thanks to not following the concept of ‘Luca Laplace’ at all, Hildegart Wittelsbach came looking for me. It’s good news. Yet my mouth grows parched. Some things, even when anticipated, make you wonder, surely not.

A heavy voice resembling Leonard’s invades my eardrums like moss.

“…Also, it’s the first time I’ve seen you speak German so fluently. Weren’t you someone who could only say ‘How do you do?’ in German?”

So he managed tests somehow but couldn’t speak—is that it? Isn’t this a matter of shyness? What’s certain is that ‘Luca Laplace’ was someone who attended school dejectedly, unable to make any protest to friends, and conversation was impossible before protest. I gave an obvious answer.

“If you’re going to study in German, you have to know how.”

“Speaking and writing are different things.”

“…”

“Unfortunately, I don’t know how many attached themselves to you just now, but you wouldn’t be numerically matched yet you shook them off, and you who had never thought of running suddenly sprinted at full speed and burst out for the first time. Also…”

Instead of looking at my eyes, Hildegart Wittelsbach continued speaking while leisurely rolling his pupils, lost in thought.

“Earlier you raised your fist to drive away a 3rd year senior. I’d be very grateful if you could tell me how that became possible.”

I know why he’s curious about that. He’s not interrogating without any guess. He’s already laid out speculation and answers and is trying to confirm them. Using the opponent’s sky-blue pupils as a mirror, seeing that no pink was reflected there at all, I twisted my stiff tongue.

“I don’t know. I just slept and woke up.”

“Slept and woke up. Where?”

“…I woke up collapsed in the alley in front of the school gate. Does that answer your question?”

Then Hildegart Wittelsbach, who had been looking where I pointed, burst into hearty laughter as if absurd. Not sleeping and waking up at home, but sleeping and waking up on the street. Even I would find it absurd.

I fixed my gaze on his profile as his eyes gradually returned to face forward. In such trivial moments, I became more frozen and at a loss than ever before. The face that I hadn’t even thought resembled anyone when expressionless began to look alike once he started smiling. Perhaps because the biggest difference in eye shape was no longer visible and facial muscle movement largely dominated the moment—even in this moment I couldn’t stop my occupational disease. Actually, I had no intention of stopping and rather tried to analyze, because muscles moving in the same way actually means the inner stories are homogeneous rather than being a characteristic of appearance.

My waist and shoulders gradually stiffened in a strange way. Not in terms of appearance but rather in all aspects excluding that, strangely when analyzing Hildegart Wittelsbach like character analysis by comparing him with various people, I could only see his child rather than his brother. Honestly speaking, I don’t feel even a bit of Emanuel Wittelsbach’s aura from him. Even when laughing heartily in the same way, the two don’t resemble each other. The composure that Hildegart and Leonard Wittelsbach share is a different kind of composure that cannot be seen in Emanuel Wittelsbach. Unlike him, a collateral royal who cannot become crown prince, the direct line shared a slightly different nature. There might be personality differences, but judging from Elias’s case, the difference in attitudes learned while growing up carrying their respective duties as direct and collateral lines would have had a greater impact.

Yet when not making comparative analysis, Hildegart Wittelsbach was unique. He is neither someone’s saint nor source, but one distinctive person. Just as Leonard Wittelsbach is not a person subordinate to his mother.

While sharing the same things surprisingly greatly yet with the distinction of being different people clearly approaching, my feelings right now are indescribably strange. Yes, the same strangeness I felt earlier. Damn… can this be possible. I silently moved my lips. I hadn’t anticipated such a variable. Now that the host has come looking for me on his own feet, for reasons I can’t understand, I want to leave this place. Though I really can’t.

As a friend of Leonard Wittelsbach, I kept finding familiar things in his saint, and whenever I read something familiar from this perfect stranger, fear inexplicably assaults me. This unfamiliar fear made me want to avoid the situation. Or is it because of the unfamiliar pressure he gives?

The thought didn’t last long. In that instant, Hildegart Wittelsbach now looked at the roadside expressionlessly and asked.

“Did you have a traffic accident?”

“I’d like to know that too, Count Wittelsbach.”

I slightly moved my leg to the side while spreading my hands.

“I’ll go into class now. See you later.”

* * *

I didn’t avoid the situation out of fear. Though I need to analyze the cause of that fear, I don’t leave for such reasons. My leaving was a kind of strategy and plan.

“I think I know why you’re following me.”

I said with difficulty. Naturally, Hildegart Wittelsbach was following beside me, walking with familiar steps. The imperial studies classes weren’t in vain. Both Wittelsbachs walk exactly the same way. I muttered, feeling like a specter from my memories was following beside me. When I slowed my pace and hesitated in front of numerous lecture halls, Hildegart Wittelsbach crossed his arms and casually let his gaze wander before nodding at me.

“If you know, then hurry up and go in.”

Look at this. The reason he followed is obvious. He’s assuming I don’t know where the lecture hall is, isn’t he?

It’s true. I don’t even know what year it is, so how would I know the lecture hall? I recall wandering around lost at Mecklenburg-Strelitz’s magic school. I stroked my chin and pressed my brow from top to bottom like a massage before carefully climbing the stairs. I plopped down at a table on one side of the hall and looked out the window. Hildegart Wittelsbach sat across from me and smiled as if he had no interest whatsoever in my permission.

“Blatantly skipping class.”

“That’s right.”

“Why don’t you even know what class you should attend?”

“…”

I looked at the opponent sitting comfortably leaning back and said.

“I don’t understand why Your Highness is interested in my changes.”

I know.

The letters I saw on the passport flash before my eyes. Classification 1. How could a Human shake off three mages and get out? Hildegart Wittelsbach has no interest in other things and only asks me that. How can a person change so much overnight?

Hildegart Wittelsbach ignored my words and continued.

“You were supposed to take anatomy and physiology.”

“Your memory is remarkable. How do you know?”

“Well, I have to go to an anatomy and physiology lecture in 10 minutes. You forgot that you take the same classes as me.”

Couldn’t the system tell me such things first?

Hildegart Wittelsbach flicked his finger to unbuckle my bag. Magic power flipped the lid and pulled out the only book.

“Besides, trauma medicine isn’t a subject you take. You must have come to give new materials to a senior. …The book must have cost a fortune, your love for seniors is remarkable.”

He respectfully picked up the thick hardbound trauma medicine textbook. Then he said kindly in a voice that wasn’t particularly sarcastic.

“If not, tell me no. If you don’t remember, say you don’t remember.”

What will you do then—no need to ask. I remained silent. Hildegart Wittelsbach didn’t say it twice. He took my hand. With the same indifferent eyes as Leonard looking at Narke, without a smile, he opened my hand and made me grip the textbook.

“Go on, deliver it.”

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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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