How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 609

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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 (609)

It’s something I always feel.

Covering the eyes isn’t really a good choice. With all other senses open except sight, I could actually catch things I normally wouldn’t notice. I feel where the wind brushing against my skin comes from and where it goes. I can hear where people move from and to, and even how wide this space is. I can tell what people are holding in their hands each time they make sounds. A fragrant and deep scent lingers at the tip of my nose—it seems like they’re burning incense used for rituals.

Considering that covering the eyes is meant to block information and strengthen security, now that other senses are collecting information instead, such attempts are quite useless… They probably don’t know because they’ve never been in this situation themselves, but if they want to prevent information gathering, it would be better to put me to sleep. From this I could understand their needs. The fact that they didn’t put me to sleep means they need my consciousness. This seems important to me. I could give a couple of reasons for that.

A gloved hand cupped my cheek and opened my mouth to pour something in. It’s cold. High concentration. I can’t feel anything else. I couldn’t suggest not drinking it. I couldn’t speak.

Soon I felt my stomach twisting and had to vomit up everything inside. Since the muscles controlling bone movement weren’t working, even that wasn’t something I did with my own strength. At least the visceral muscles are still moving. I sneered at their pettiness. Like being laid out in an ancient ritual procession, someone tilted and lowered my body, someone opened my jaw, and someone brought water and fragrant salt. They did the same thing once more to confirm nothing more was coming from my stomach, and only then did they lift me again.

They’re not going to roast and eat me, so I couldn’t understand why they needed to empty my stomach, yet I could also understand. It seems like preparing for the possibility of choking to death. Or perhaps it’s an ancient purification ritual. This reasoning itself makes it easy to predict what they’re trying to accomplish and what I’ll have to endure.

If I had been acting like an ordinary person in front of cameras, I would have had to express tremendous rejection and humiliation when being purified by them. I had never been naturally standardized in that sense, and that non-standard emotional state that had separated me from reality my entire life wasn’t bad at this moment. Because I found everyone’s every action puzzling, I had the capacity to study them, and while I clearly know what emotions I should feel and what intentions I should express if I had proper self-respect, I feel regret at their dehumanization. The fact that their regrettable actions won’t end here makes me feel devastated. This wasn’t an attitude that could be shown to humans. The desire to escape from the enormous pain that life gives knows no borders. Human greed and desires are endless. Their misdirected faith is also endless. They worship to avoid suffering.

They are dehumanizing me—not an inch of beautification can be tolerated for that, nor should it be considered as such. Rituals beautify. They condone dehumanization for the sake of rituals. They don’t think they might be wrong, because the sacred activity called ritual condones bloodshed with its own sanctity. Religion created to free humans from suffering is no longer in its original purpose like this. Rather than knowing the world’s pain and following religious teachings by reducing the world’s suffering with a communal heart, they petition God to eliminate their own suffering.

Countless rituals were no different from this. I was displeased with offering sheep as burnt offerings. I found it questionable to draw blood and apply it to doorposts. Invariably, this ritual also needed a sacrifice. I’m certain that emptying the stomach isn’t simply a medical act but a ritual. I’m convinced of this again from the ritual. Right now they were using a person as a vessel for sacrifice.

Even though they made me a vessel, was there a reason my consciousness had to remain? I’d been curious about that since talking with Mr. Laplace.

I was seated in a metal chair by the two people holding me. I’m not sure if I can recognize it as sitting when it’s not my will. The chair is hard with no cloth covering. I must have stepped onto a platform rather than just the floor, as a different type of stone than the marble that people around are stepping on with their shoes touches my bare feet below. They placed my hands on the armrests and tilted my head diagonally downward.

“…Hahaha…”

Mr. Laplace, who used to call me ‘son,’ wakes up with someone’s help and wanders around making wind sounds with his mouth while dragging his feet. It doesn’t seem like he’s trying to confuse my senses, but rather that he can’t contain his joy. The logic I learned crumbles here. Mother is an accomplice. Mother considers it an honor that her son was offered as a sacrifice. He doesn’t even think I became a sacrifice. My child is a god. Then I am a saint who gave birth to a god. Mother believes this and laughs quietly. The will of the child who became a sacrifice isn’t important to him. We were in such different positions.

Before the ritual of preparing the vessel, mother—he—changed the clothes I came wearing to an unidentifiable cloth, presumably a tunic. Since we’re family, he would have taken the role of helping Laplace’s body change clothes, but naturally it wasn’t a very pleasant experience from my perspective, yet I feel worse now hearing the laughter than I did then. They say you can’t spit in a smiling face, but I think I could spit just fine. I wanted to ask him to stay far away.

I still can’t move. I can only feel countless people coming and going around in this vast room with echoing sounds, and what they’re preparing and touching. The gloves I habitually wore every day are already gone. Mr. Laplace removed everything attached to my body and dressed me in long cloth that reaches my ankles. There were no shoes either. The only accessory left on me is the rope around my waist. Thanks for the daily ancient person experience. Though even ancient people would have worn sandals at least…

I understood well what picture they wanted. Gradually the sounds subside.

Someone covers my head with what seems to be linen cloth. Listening to the sound, it’s two layers. Thin silk fell down along my nose. Someone bowed my head further down so the cloth fell away from the bridge of my nose. I would have laughed if I could. It seems they don’t want to see my face now either. Well, of course! Am ‘I’ a god? Wrong. Laplace’s Mother also said ‘the revered one will come.’ She seems to believe her son would become the revered one and come, but what’s important is still what’s inside. The flesh has no choice but to be pushed back. So this is Abel. Abel, this flesh will become the medium I once acted as…

I change the subject in disillusionment. If I let my consciousness slip just a little, sleep comes. Whether they burned frankincense in this hall, everything had a relaxing effect. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been placed in such crazy environments so often that I’ve become someone who could sleep even if dropped in the middle of the Arctic. Unlike before, now I just watch to see how far these crazy bastards will go—since I’m trying to collide with the world single-handedly, there’s no other method for now. If it gets really shitty, I can leave. I can leave, but… I didn’t want to experience this problem twice. Most interestingly, the hands that held me and gave me water weren’t as large as I thought. They were long and had volume so I couldn’t call them small, but they’re definitely not Esper hands.

The door opens and closes several times. It’s still quiet, but I can feel people lining up in this huge hall. They all move in unison. The sound of fabric rustling is heard simultaneously.

Flute music flows. Then the soft melody of an organ is heard. Someone recites a psalm.

[O God, how precious are your thoughts to me! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand! When I awake, I am still with you.]

The countless crowd standing in place began reciting the same psalm. The rumbling sound echoing through the hall confuses my mind trapped in this motionless body. Someone with a solemn voice recites the psalm once more.

[O Yahweh, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Yahweh, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?]

“O Yahweh, you have searched me and known me…”

The hall’s sound reflects multiple voices. Besides the many people still standing in place, two others move busily around. There’s the sound of fingernails touching porcelain.

It’s cold.

A viscous liquid drips from my head. It flowed down over the veil, over my eyes and cheeks. A bitter and heavy smell—what the hell is this smell? Quiet yet boiling cries follow. The porcelain pouring the liquid now moves to my chest, to my left shoulder.

[If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.]

“…even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day—”

People begin chanting it like a round song. The woody-smelling liquid pools in the chair then flows down my legs. Something like a snake constricts my flesh. I realized immediately. It was my mistake. Gradually their chanting begins to match the leader’s chanting. What was initially a paragraph behind now draws close.

[For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.]

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb! I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made—”

The hall fills with people’s clamoring. How many would this be—a hundred? Or two hundred? I’m at a loss for words at the liquid flowing along my clothes and body. I had nothing more to say about their resonance either. Everything shocks me.

I feel someone stepping on stairs and approaching close by. They seem to kneel, then lift and firmly grasp my right hand resting on the armrest. He kissed the back of my hand for a long time.

“Because the Lord exists, we are in this place.”

I know those words aren’t meant for me. I wasn’t their master. I didn’t want to become that, had never said I would, and it wasn’t even possible. I was enduring this ritual that would leave only wounds for true Christians, for me, and for all of them. Enduring it doesn’t make it true. It shouldn’t. I need to pick out where they mix truth and speculation from start to finish. An unknown voice speaks as if praying.

“The Lord added life to us so that He could manifest Himself. We did not live, but because you looked down upon us, we mistakenly think we lived like this. To fulfill the mission you gave us, we rush forward knowing nothing. But I know, Lord. As important as the mission you gave us is serving you, Lord.”

I was speechless. Even if I couldn’t speak from the beginning, I would have been. “He added life to us so that He could manifest Himself”—those words remained in me like an echo. Even if I could move, I would have frozen in place, and even now as I’m frozen, it felt as if time and space had stopped. But he continues speaking as if declaring.

“Lord, why did you make us? We were possibilities. But you breathed life into us and told us to display the greatness of France. You told us to place your glorious and blessed descendant Bourbon on the throne. We will surely accomplish what you commanded, Lord. But Lord, we are creatures into whom you breathed freedom. We cannot help but express this gratitude and joy to you. Long ago, you came once before. You already came to our side. Lord, you had Blessed Virgin Mary bring yourself into the world in human form. You came down directly to France and with your two hands and shining eyes and thunderous voice, you heard our ancestors’ suffering and encouraged them.”

Wrong. You’re wrong. You’re mistaken. At the same time, I knew. I couldn’t completely dismiss it. Their words were something I shouldn’t let pass by. That fact drains strength from me. I’ve always thought and still think now. How can I escape from these fanatical humans? If I could furrow my brow now, I would have, and further would have buried my face in my hands. There are limits to reality that can be handled with cynicism and sarcasm.

Perhaps being unable to move is better at this moment. My heart, which would have been racing violently by now, is quiet, making me feel half-dead. The person spoke.

“Please let us join you in your heavenly world, Lord.”

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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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