How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 94

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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 Family (94)

The moment I returned, I doubted my eyes.

I knew time had rewound because the pain I felt in my stomach disappeared in an instant, but….

“Argh!”

“Uh, uh!”

“Grab him!”

I wasn’t given time to finish the warp formula.

Once again, a grayish blade swept past beneath the letter.

Thunk―

“Urgh…!”

The tip of the blade tore through my glove and scratched my palm.

Perhaps because the air was cold, the sensation of flesh splitting was more vivid than usual.

‘This crazy….’

Crash―!

I grabbed the old man’s forearm with my other arm and threw him far away.

“Aaah!”

People screamed and backed away.

Blood dripped from inside the torn glove. Now I noticed pain from above my left hip bone as well.

Still, compared to earlier when I was clearly stabbed in the organs, just having my skin scratched was a much more hopeful situation.

‘Is this the last checkpoint?’

I definitely gave the same instruction during Elias’s time too.

Back then, time rewound sufficiently.

I can’t understand why I have to go through this, but I clearly understand that this is a situation I must know about.

The investigator immediately subdued the old man. Unlike before, since I didn’t suffer fatal injuries, he didn’t seem to panic.

“….”

I tried not to focus on the pain as I recited a divine spell and grabbed the old man’s forehead.

“Who ordered you to do this?”

“….”

The old man stared blankly at the floor with unfocused eyes.

‘…Right, of course.’

Seeing how he couldn’t say anything, it seems they completely erased his memory and only implanted commands.

Since it wasn’t strength the old man could produce in the first place, an investigation would detect vitriol in his body.

In an instant, mages from the Investigation Bureau set up barriers around the crowd.

One mage rushed to me and asked.

“Are you alright?! Let’s move to the hospital immediately.”

Two mages stayed by my side and prepared warp magic.

Just before moving, I saw the mages warping to the Investigation Bureau while holding the old man.

* * *

“You mustn’t use your hand for at least three days. No strenuous exercise either.”

“Three days.”

The doctor nodded and answered.

“I can’t reduce the time any further with my abilities. Though if we treated this with general medicine, it would take at least three weeks.”

‘This is a big problem.’

When I first came to this place, I was treated by His Majesty the King.

If I have to wait three days even after receiving treatment from the most skilled people in this country, there’s no choice.

“Right. I understand.”

“Get plenty of rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The doctor left the room.

I felt Leo’s sharp gaze hitting me, but I deliberately ignored it.

Leo repeated my words with a sneer.

“Not satisfied with three days, I see?”

“No.”

I took off my mask and leaned against the wall.

How could I not be satisfied?

Having experienced getting a hole in my stomach, I have no intention of complaining about treatment taking a few days.

“Whatever you’re thinking of doing for three days, give it up. It’s Christmas anyway, so if you play it right, you won’t have to see the other team members.”

“Right, that’s fortunate.”

I do have something in mind to do.

Of course, unlike Leo’s worry, I have no intention of moving around – it’s simply something that only requires using my head.

“Give me a newspaper, Leo.”

“Hmm, since you can’t use your hands, this is good.”

Leo said half-mockingly.

It’s probably not simply because I’m ordering him around.

In fact, regardless of status or anything else, I’ve already made him do countless things as long as it didn’t show publicly.

Having no choice, I leaned on my elbow and reached my other arm toward the nightstand, but Leo snatched the newspaper away.

“Don’t read it.”

“….”

“Later. You know you’re running a fever again, right?”

“I know.”

“Then you should sleep now.”

Considering his stubbornness, saying anything here probably won’t work.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

Anyway, I did read the newspaper briefly this morning.

‘They said mana inspections targeting commoners have been strengthened.’

The Emperor’s doing.

He’s thinking of finding people from the Catacombs to infiltrate there. I confirmed that point from the letter earlier.

And news of the Imperial Mage Team led by Adrian Ascanien, strengthened downtown security right before Christmas, results of the 3rd year magic potion competition….

‘Hmm.’

I wish I could have read more details.

For now, the most noticeable among these is the surprise inspections targeting commoners.

‘…To think he’d try to scratch at the Catacombs at this opportunity, his greed is excessively excessive.’

I don’t know how many people have to die from that greed before he’s satisfied.

Using the manpower for inspections to monitor Pleroma would be much more economical and much more ethical.

It would also be a way to delay the time when he gets purged by Elias.

Then I heard Leo’s deflated laughter.

“Should I give you sleeping pills?”

“No. There’s no need for that.”

I opened my eyes and sat up again.

Not many people could peacefully fall asleep just because they have a slight fever when they almost died moments ago.

In fact, this isn’t the time for that.

I need to figure out the culprit. Who on earth committed such a bold act in the middle of the capital of Bavaria?

‘Is there a possibility it was Traut?’

No.

That’s excessive speculation.

If he had planned the crime, he would have had to connect Nicolaus and Lucas.

Except for Hyung who excessively considers every possibility, no one would make such speculation, and even Hyung couldn’t have included such a point in Traut’s letter.

Even if he had included it, it gets blocked at this point.

‘The fact that I would have died if time hadn’t rewound.’

Hyung’s worried letter has the clear limitation that it cannot instigate murder.

As long as Adrian keeps up the act of being a family member who dearly loves his sick younger brother, Traut would never kill me. Unless he’s trying to verify my innocence, that is.

And this crime’s goal was murder, not verification.

‘Good, it’s getting narrower.’

Lucas is not involved.

Indeed, which group would benefit from killing Nicolaus?

This is the clue to finding the mastermind behind this crime.

Crash—!

Just then, the door opened with a terrifying sound.

Seeing that Leo wasn’t startled, it seemed he had been contacted in advance.

Elias arrived with a serious face and looked at my hand in disbelief.

“…Was the Imperial Newspaper real?”

“…”

“In the middle of the kingdom’s capital, what on earth… What about His Majesty the King?”

“He came by briefly earlier and left.”

He couldn’t stay long at the hospital since he had to hold a strategy meeting.

Elias quickly understood and looked around, asking.

“Where’s Narke? She took the exam with you guys.”

“As soon as the incident happened, she went to the Investigation Bureau to interrogate the criminal.”

Leo now surrounded the three of us and cast a sound-blocking spell before speaking.

“While you were receiving treatment earlier, the investigation results came in. It’s not vitriol, but contaminated magic power was detected in the blood.”

‘Hmm…’

Vitriol didn’t come out?

There wouldn’t be a stronger or more certain method than that.

Elias seemed to have the same thought as he furrowed his brow.

Then, as if catching onto something, he moved his lips.

“It’s premeditated.”

“Right. Speaking of which, I read all the letters Robert Mueller sent, Lucas.”

Elias interrupted Leo’s words.

“Robert Mueller?”

“He’s a Nicolaus fan. Quite impressive. It’s also a talent to stretch cult-like nonsense about souls resonating into 40 pages.”

Leo gave Elias the previous letter and handed me a crisp new letter.

This time, perhaps due to lack of time, it was only three pages.

[To my dear Count Nicolaus Ernst]

[I heard the news. What on earth happened? I can’t believe it.]

‘For someone suspected of being the criminal, it’s a pretty ordinary start.’

Enough of this trivial talk.

I flipped the paper to the page Leo had already read and folded.

[It was so cool.]

‘…Hah.’

Of course.

Where did the guy who said he couldn’t believe it go, and now he’s saying it was cool.

[If I were in the same situation, could I have acted like that? Actually, I wanted to help you, but it’s regrettable that I didn’t have the opportunity. If I had been a little more agile, I could have helped you, right? But since there was only a two-step difference between you and the criminal, it would have been difficult no matter how agile I was.]

Only a two-step difference.

I chuckled and said.

“It sounds like he watched the incident from the scene.”

“Right. Both warp magic and walking movement are being controlled. The Imperial Newspaper also only put up the title without detailed reporting yet. But…”

Leo held up the letter envelope and certificate in front of my eyes.

“See? It’s a warp mail postmark sent directly from the Free City of Hamburg 10 minutes ago.”

Northern Empire.

You could say it’s at the opposite end from this place.

Everyone who was at the scene couldn’t leave that place, but the letter came from a post office in another region?

“It can only be explained by saying he knew the incident would happen.”

“Right. He probably tried to advertise the fact that it was a planned crime by making the letter content and postmark contradict each other.”

“Why would he need to advertise such a fact?”

“Because he intended to hide the real culprit.”

‘Hmm.’

I nodded at Leo’s words.

He shares some of my thoughts.

The fanatical letters that had been listing streams of consciousness so far are a smokescreen.

The intention was probably to make it seem like information was ‘accidentally’ leaked at the most crucial moment.

Leo continued speaking.

“You probably had an intuition about who the culprit might be. But if it ends with just intuition, it’s meaningless. The Investigation Bureau, which must judge only by evidence, will conclude that Robert committed the crime based on this letter.”

“Keep talking.”

“Remember the situation right after the report came in? For Pleroma, the crime was sloppy. I think you were able to avoid fatal injury because you sensed something was off.”

I went to the brink of death, but let’s skip that part. It seems Leo also felt that the crime was crude.

I nodded to indicate he should continue talking.

“Even such a crime would be intentional. It would be a loss if it became obvious that Pleroma led the murder. Pleroma doesn’t only have you to deal with.”

Elias casually threw out words as if he already knew.

“They’d have to deal with me and you too.”

“Right.”

For that to be true, the risk is too great since we’re two royals.

When I didn’t agree, Leo added.

“If you plan well enough, you could certainly end Adrian Ascanien’s life. But why don’t you?”

“…”

“Those guys are similar. Simply killing is something that stirs up public discontent. It would be like creating a hero who died in the line of duty fighting injustice.”

“Right, making the people distrust us would work more completely.”

“Exactly. Probably the real plan targeting us will be carried out while Nicolaus is treating his injuries. If not, there would be no reason to commit such a diversionary crime.”

“…Yeah, that’s decent logic.”

As I stroked my chin and fell into thought, Leo nagged.

“You seem like you’d step forward at this point, but you can’t go. Just so you know.”

Elias, who had been deep in thought, threw out a comment.

“Ah~ The alarm goes off if you use warp magic. I wondered why they suddenly told us to travel on foot. Now I see it was this guy’s doing.”

“…Then why did you tell me who the culprit is?”

“There’s no way you couldn’t have made this much of a guess. I told you because I wanted to say you absolutely can’t go out.”

I shrugged my shoulders while looking at Leo’s smile.

“Alright, I won’t go.”

“…What?”

“I have no intention of going.”

Leo asked with a dumbfounded face.

“What kind of plan do you have now?”

“…If you’re going to complain even when I say I won’t go, why ask…”

“No, humanly speaking, your track record…”

“No, shut up! When I say I won’t go, just cheer me on!”

At Leo’s realistic response, Elias finally found his usual playfulness and thumped the bed.

It’s true that I have no intention of going.

This is bait to lure us out.

‘It’s also bait inspired by the Strauchi case.’

Leo’s logic wasn’t bad, but if you add one thing he could never know, his hypothesis wavers.

If I hadn’t turned back time, I would have died.

As Leo said, killing me outright is a simple plan. Even with an obsessive fan as a front, it’s the same.

If the situation escalated to the extreme of death, wouldn’t there be anyone bold enough to guess that Robert Mueller might be Pleroma’s smokescreen?

Of course there would be.

Even though Pleroma was a prime suspect, they stabbed me with the intent to kill.

‘The reason must be this.’

The one who planned the crime is not Pleroma, while simultaneously being in a position to benefit from my death.

I unfolded the letter I had read during the day.

[I hope you will always maintain this resolve. There aren’t many who have the determination to risk their lives to eliminate Pleroma.]

[…All the people must unite. Everyone has grown weary from the long-lasting Pleroma era and learned helplessness. Count Nicolaus awakened our times.]

Though what follows is immediately useless content, this part reveals the Antagonist’s ideology well.

‘It’s a messy plan, but the benefits are clearer than expected.’

First, they can frame Pleroma for Nicolaus’s murder and maximize anti-Pleroma sentiment.

Next, it’s an opportunity to make Nicolaus a hero who died fighting Pleroma to the end.

Under the assumption that he’s a fanatical fan with strange thinking, it’s a decent ending.

They twisted the assumptions ‘Pleroma would naturally make it not look like Pleroma’ and ‘only Pleroma would attack Nicolaus’ once more.

‘Good strategy.’

It’s been a while since I met an opponent I liked.

“You said no vitriol was found at the scene, right?”

“Right.”

“They weren’t trying to deceive us—they really didn’t have the ability to obtain vitriol. Instead, they used that to make it look like Pleroma’s crime.”

However, the spatial separation magic installed at the scene is quite similar to Pleroma’s.

There was a group that was similar to Pleroma, but not Pleroma.

‘Catacombs.’

In the novel, Elias had also contacted the Catacombs.

No, to be precise, it’s more accurate to say he was also going to be used as a unifying tool for the Catacombs, like me.

Though the reason and sequence of events are different from mine…

If Robert Mueller really is one of their people, the situation isn’t entirely bad.

I already have reasons to infiltrate the Catacombs anyway, so it might be good to try a new plan around now.

I smiled as warmly as possible and said.

“Shall we move on to the next plan?”

“…!”

Leo grabbed the back of his neck with a face asking what he’d been listening to all this time.

“Even if I call it a plan, it’s nothing special. It’s simple.”

Leo pressed his forehead.

It really is simple, but he can’t believe it.

Still, unlike Leo, Elias moved closer with a serious expression.

I looked at both of them and said.

“Just stay still. At least, Nicolaus Ernst should.”

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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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