How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 603

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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 (603)

I have no special feelings for this person.

To be precise, I’m in a state where I don’t feel they’re worth associating with. If circumstances weren’t entangled, if Laplace weren’t engaged to Rosalie, I would have straightened out their mindset and never come looking for them again. I can deliver my intentions precisely and demand reflection in the dimension of respecting those who show no respect for human-to-human dignity, but if they show no will beyond ideals, I have no reason to waste time on them. This is a different dimension from pitying them. Because I respect myself, I cannot be with such impersonal and wasteful people.

On the other hand, if they have the capacity for tolerance and the will to engage in constructive dialogue, my words would be different too. So what should they be able to embrace?

Even if I try to have Brüderschaft, I have no intention of having the emotions Rosalie wants. I don’t expect to build anything beyond the feelings I have for fellow citizens with them, and in such cases, my expectations usually prove correct. If I were to truly maintain a ‘tolerant’ relationship, one where hierarchy is established between people and one tries to lord over others accordingly, that wouldn’t suit my temperament. Unless my will follows, I have no intention of being tolerant, so I had to overturn things and always have, and did so again today. Even when trying not to do so, from a practical dimension, experience showed that the only ways to stop hierarchical people from exercising further violence were to respond with the same hierarchy or with indifference.

Now Rosalie can never handle Laplace as she pleases again. Though I can willingly accept his bravado. Now that a relationship has come where I can overlook their bravado, if they don’t let go of the string, I can continue it, but that’s superficial. The state of one’s companions speaks to part of who that person is. To avoid being tainted, one must stay close to virtuous people and distance oneself from frivolous ones. If one stays beside those with twisted hearts, no matter how much one weighs and considers, there’s a risk of naturally being tainted over time, and beside virtuous people, even if it takes long, one is bound to have opportunities for contemplation and reflection. For someone like me, giving choices to French people like those medical student seniors is not an easy decision on the rational level.

Decisively, I cannot look favorably upon these two French people’s open culture. It may sound nice to call it openness and culture, but to Laplace and me it was violence, so honestly, it’s disgusting. How are they different from those medical student seniors who tormented Laplace? Nothing different except appearance and personality.

Such ambivalent moments are already familiar to me. I could feel aversion to their violence and character while considering their circumstances, so I spoke. Since Rosalie’s emotions are entangled with this body. So, can you truly possess humanity?

“If you put it that way, what am I supposed to answer.”

Rosalie speaks in a locked voice.

“I have no choice.”

I know.

The choice I’m giving him is a dead end with no retreat.

Nevertheless, I did this. Should I say with my own mouth that I’m treating you as a passing stranger’s impression, meeting you for the first time today? When that stranger is crying and beating their chest on the street, I can know they had pitiful circumstances and send them encouragement, but that’s all. The emotion I’m treating you with now is exactly that. My proposal to try for Brüderschaft is confessing affection that was never built and cannot be found, at best the universal recognition one has for people, and Rosalie understands my meaning too.

Respect as comrades—this is the maximum consideration I can offer. If you want sincerity beyond that… I could maintain appearances, but you should have known that my sincerity isn’t what you desire. Now I had to say when I would act, that I would act. Acting that I started alone without saying was fraud. It helped no one… I closed my eyes once and opened them. Since no one answers, only silence remains.

“Fine.”

I moved my gaze downward to the tearful voice coming from below my head.

“Brüderschaft.”

He repeated my words in awkward German. He pressed on my shoulder, staggered to his feet, then said to me.

“Let’s go.”

“Where to.”

“We’ll secretly return to the country.”

“Hmm, right. What’s your scheme?”

“No scheme.”

There’s no playfulness in Rosalie’s voice. I nodded and spoke soothingly.

“You could take me to a stronger Arcane Mage.”

To punish me, that is.

If not from a spy’s perspective, they might try to restrain me again and find a way to revive the old me. Should I tell them in advance that there’s no method? I only think it and stop.

Rosalie shook his head.

“I thought about that too, but no. I don’t want to.”

“Because that’s not what friends do?”

Rosalie spoke firmly while his swollen eyes wandered.

“No. We need to utilize your divine power.”

“Now that’s interesting to hear. How?”

“Let’s go to Bonaparte’s cabinet. Find out what General Saint-Arnaud, who openly acts as a royalist, is planning.”

I looked at him silently.

To me, that sounds like: let’s go to the heart of France. And it’s true. I’ve been walking along side paths, going against everything to get here. Is it alright to go to the heart of enemy territory?

I stood up and took Rosalie’s hand. Rosalie looks down at the handshaking hand. It’s a greeting between colleagues. Is there a problem? When I smiled gently with no intention of sneering, Rosalie said with cold eyes.

“You still haven’t answered.”

I flicked my eyebrow once and lowered my eyes. I couldn’t answer immediately. Rosalie would want me to retract what I said about recognition as comrades and say let’s love each other as lovers. That’s why he asks me repeatedly. Really?

I gripped his hand tighter and answered.

“Do that.”

Rosalie confirms once more in a shaking voice.

“Starting from today.”

“Good, Rose.”

Rosalie stares up at me in a daze. Unlike him standing precariously as if he’d shatter if touched, I’m as stable as always.

Rosalie whispered to me without blinking once.

“Those words feel more distant to me than calling me Blanchet.”

Rosalie seeks Luca Laplace who called him Blanchet to the end. I answered without avoiding his gaze.

“I know.”

* * *

We headed to France the next day. First, we had to send word to the ancient documents research society too. Both Sarah Hohenfelss and the current state of exchanges with the predecessor of Terminus Yukairya—there was still much to learn.

Now we’re on our way to meet a great French figure who would still be alive in 1898, having seized the opportunity. Rosalie asked me to interrogate Saint-Arnaud, but I intended to seek out those presumed to be the heads of the Bourbons.

We boarded the train again. Noah entered the compartment car and sat in the seat across from me. Not long after, Rosalie, who had pushed his long hair into a hat and put on pants, followed in and naturally sat beside Noah.

I wouldn’t want to call putting on pants a disguise, but considering conventional wisdom, it certainly was. Rosalie’s height seemed to be somewhere between 165cm and 175cm, so when dressed according to Human gender concepts, there was a high possibility of being perceived as a male student. There would be subtle differences in facial bone structure, but how is that possible? Espers are the same in that regard. If I strutted through the city in a dress at about 185cm tall, people would call me a lady. It seems wrong somehow and I’m not sure, but if someone’s wearing a skirt, people generally call them that.

It’s absurd in some ways, but for now I just needed to focus on the fact that they were systematically spying with their own fake identities. Lucien, with his broken hand bones, deliberately didn’t put on a conspicuous splint and only wrapped bandages inside his gloves. He concealed the bruise on his jaw with divine power. Admiring their preparedness, I wondered why Rosalie didn’t sit beside me, and it seems he sat across to look at my face. Thanks to that, I felt like my face would be pierced through.

I was gradually really wanting to leave. Staying long in an extra chapter where everything is predetermined is quite exhausting. If I could just get out of this extra chapter, I could rest buried in my familiar bed in my office, already adjusted to my preferences, without needing to go anywhere far, but today I woke up on a bed with just a mattress on boards and am with people whose faces I don’t particularly want to see.

Until the train departed, I leaned my head against the car window and blankly stared at the platform. When I recalled that I was accustomed to making my office my home, it was after thinking that if I couldn’t have time to rest after leaving this place, I’d rather return to the 1851 crown prince’s palace. I was surprised but not particularly shocked. That place was where past and present intersected for me. The impossible ability of time travel made me believe that even being in the past, I wasn’t isolated but connected to some moment in 1898. Such stability seems to emanate from architecture that has maintained the same position for 30 years and the warm solidity of plaster, but in reality, it emanates neither from such plaster, nor portraits, nor porcelain, nor tapestries, but solely from the legacy that memories with people left me. Those things were merely at the edges of memories with people.

Even so, the current owner of the crown prince’s palace is Prince Hildegard, so there are all kinds of fools who think of walking into a tiger’s den with their own feet—how refreshing. I sighed and sneered.

I become anxious as each day passes of the 30 days promised to Prince Hildegard. When I should be striving not to be purged even after 30 days pass, I’m stopping by France. Leaving him behind.

“Did breakfast suit your taste?”

Lucien casually struck up conversation with me. I like his attitude of not caring at all about when he collapsed before me.

“How surprising that you ask that when you didn’t even cook it?”

When I replied indifferently, Rosalie, sitting beside Lucien, asked once more.

“Did it suit your taste?”

“Of course, Rose. I could have cooked, but I’m rather worried about making you work so early in the morning. Thank you.”

The reason I didn’t cook was nothing special—I just wasn’t familiar with the kitchen layout of an unfamiliar house and didn’t know where things were, I knew how to cook few things besides soybean paste stew, and decisively, I had no intention of eating. I smiled and answered, resting my chin on the window frame. No matter how unaccustomed to eating I was, I had no intention of coldly responding while acting as Laplace after receiving others’ labor and consideration. Rosalie no longer smiled playfully at my smile. Since confirming that this smile belongs to another person, he gets bloodshot eyes whenever I show kindness.

“Want to sit next to me?”

I quietly asked, patting the seat beside me. Rosalie didn’t answer.

I have no intention of deliberately making things painful. I’m just doing things my way. I need to think long-term. Though I could recreate the way of love Rosalie wants, I had to keep reminding him that it wasn’t real. If Rosalie couldn’t bear it and asked me to act like ‘Laplace,’ I was willing to sympathize with the situation of body ownership being switched and comply, but until then I had to show how I was trying to treat this stranger as a friend. Only then could I avoid deception. I believe so.

“There’s not much you need to do.”

As I looked out the window hoping someone would say something useful first, Lucien spoke. It was about 20 minutes after the Paris-bound train departed.

“I’ll tell you what position you were in. The engagement with Blanchet was his instruction.”

“That didn’t seem to be everything.”

“You courted Blanchet long ago. He concluded the engagement based solely on your wishes. But the fact that you’re displeased with Blanchet today has already spread quietly. You just don’t say it out loud. To that extent…”

“Not a good image.”

I shrugged and continued.

“A discarded card. Why keep me close?”

Discarded card—that doesn’t mean immediately useless. Without special reason, there’s no reason to keep someone around who hasn’t left good feelings with the adults, continuing to assign them work. Right now, adult members are more important to them than members who are still children, yet the reason for dragging along even one more person? Even if there’s no particular reason, I had to hear it.

Lucien said nothing. He quietly stared at me, and I know that look well from experiencing it often as Lucas Ascanien. ‘You’? Were you someone who would ask about such things? Of course ‘you’ are no longer the you we knew, but… He’s adjusting his assessment of my insight.

Was Laplace really such a human who could do nothing, I wonder.

Lucien keeps staring at me, and I do the same. Rosalie shows discomfort by furrowing his brow. Laplace wouldn’t have responded to such staring contests. If Lucien had stared like this, Laplace would have averted his eyes.

Reluctantly, Rosalie opened his mouth.

“It goes around and around, he said. That despite you seeming so incompetent… you’re important.”

“Goes around and around?”

It was interesting words. However, Rosalie didn’t answer my question and narrowed his eyes, shaking his head.

“Strange. Were you also present when those words were spoken?”

“Why is that.”

Rosalie continued, lost in thought alone.

“Going around and around means the ouroboros. That was all he said. I don’t understand the meaning, but that’s why you absolutely had to be employed, he said. Lord Noayu.”

Rosalie crossed his arms, pondered, then kicked Lucien’s shoe with the tip of his black gentleman’s shoe. Lucien didn’t answer. I flicked my eyebrow at the two pieces of information I just caught.

“Who said it goes around and around? Interesting words.”

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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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