Chapter 222
Chapter 222
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 222
Chapter Title: How to Survive as the Second Son of a Magical Noble House
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The mage’s gaze turned toward the broken window.
No one could know that I was carrying out my mission here.
Eavesdropping? Tracking?
Those things were impossible against me.
[Switch! I’ll handle it better than you.]
Clang—!
The moment those words reached his ears, the mage drew an artifact and hurled it to the floor.
‘Switch?’
The word didn’t even register in his head.
Beyond the shattered window, he glimpsed someone with pink pupils passing by. He couldn’t forget the red mana that had first smashed the window and emerged outside.
What had him by the ankle now wasn’t the Investigation Bureau or anything else—it was his target.
“Hahaha….”
He’d taken a solid hit.
His face wasn’t smiling, but a faint chuckle leaked from his lips. He swallowed hard.
* * *
[We express our deepest gratitude for the achievements of Vice-Captain Lucas Ascanien Eschet, who saved over five hundred imperial guests. The Empire and His Majesty Emperor Friedrich have confirmed Vice-Captain Lucas Ascanien’s loyalty and exceptional abilities as an imperial mage. We hope for your continued dedication to the Empire.]
That day, at 9 a.m.
The chairman of the Imperial Mage Alliance cast an amplification spell and spoke solemnly before handing a commendation plaque to me, standing beside him.
I had wrapped up the rampage terror incident by 4 a.m. without so much as a wink of sleep and had been summoned here.
‘Impressively fast.’
They’d usually downplay it out of habit, but with the victims being foreign athletes rather than imperial subjects, they must have hesitated to sweep it under the rug—trying to pin it on Pentaron could backfire spectacularly with international backlash. Instead, they planned to praise the mages and medics who resolved it peacefully and extend the utmost hospitality to the athletes.
In other words, they were advertising that it wasn’t the Empire’s fault by slamming Plеромa relentlessly and elevating us as heroes.
[We also extend our deepest thanks to Leonard Wittelsbach and the other five mages who cooperated swiftly to resolve the terror incident. Without your efforts, this peace would not exist.]
Leo stepped forward and accepted the plaques on behalf of the five team members lined up in the back row.
The brief awarding ceremony wrapped up in under thirty minutes, and articles about us along with photos immediately appeared in the Imperial Newspaper.
When we returned to the academy, the team members wore smiles whose meaning I couldn’t quite grasp.
“I just slept at the dorm and stepped out—how’d I end up with a commendation plaque….”
“Haha, yeah. Kinda embarrassing.”
“Nah~”
Elias shook his head at Julia’s words.
I smiled in agreement with Elias’s sentiment.
“I could push that far because I knew you’d rush over anytime. If I couldn’t count on your help, I wouldn’t have made it this far.”
It was the kindest tone I could muster.
The palace had given me a separate plaque, so I had to be careful not to stir up any subtle conflicts.
That aside, the team had truly been a great help.
It was a matter of speed, after all.
The team members gave me puzzled looks at my words.
After that, I barely escaped being dragged into daytime drinks by the team and made it back to my room.
“…Huh.”
I raised an eyebrow.
The sight that greeted me after unlocking the door was quite the spectacle.
The table was buried under a mountain of pink notes.
Elias’s expression, who had escorted me back, hardened.
The culprit had gotten inside here, after all.
I stopped Elias from clearing them away and painstakingly sorted the fifty or so notes in the order his stream of consciousness likely followed.
[What is this?]
[Do you have any idea how hard I prepared? Do you know how startled I was when you suddenly showed up at the hotel that day? My heart dropped right into my stomach. No, words can’t even express how I felt then.]
[It was the first mission failure of my life.]
[And you’re the one taking my first failure?]
[You’re the best.]
[We’re… incredible. This has to be fate. Something connects us.]
[I still can’t believe it.]
[If you can read my mind, then why haven’t you replied even once?]
[I know the reason without you saying it. You obviously want to keep seeing me too. That’s why you don’t reply. The stuff before must’ve just been jokes.]
‘Mental victory skills on another level.’
You’d need something like that to pull off this kind of insanity.
I stared with a terrifying glare before turning to Elias, who now had his arm slung over my shoulder, trying to distract me.
“Oh? Luca’s finally looking at me.”
“Yeah. What is it? Something to say?”
“I’ve been thinking….”
Elias scribbled on a piece of paper and showed it to me.
[What if I transform into you and deal with that guy? It seems like the only way to minimize the risk.]
It’d be possible borrowing Narke’s ability. Not true transformation, just illusion.
Either way, it was out of the question. Why?
“What about your safety?”
“I’m fine~ It’d be fun!”
Elias wore an expression like he’d smash the culprit’s head in, his lips curled up in a creepy smile. A chilling sight.
I couldn’t let him veer down the wrong path at his age, so I ignored the suggestion.
I had a plan anyway.
“Eli, I need to talk to you.”
I pulled him close, layered soundproofing magic as thick as possible, added divine power, and whispered in his ear.
Elias stared at me with wide eyes before his face filled with questions.
I patted his back and smiled.
“Pass it on to the others.”
* * *
“Man, team formed less than a week and already commendations? Medals next.”
“What kinda kids are they?”
That night, at the Imperial Second Education Academy.
Third-year mages resting in the school park saw the Imperial Newspaper and let out hollow laughs.
Today, Lucas Ascanien and Eschet had each received commendation plaques from the Imperial Mage Alliance.
Just the day before yesterday, there’d been talk of someone throwing eggs at mages during the Pentaron main stadium event, and apparently Ascanien had been there. He’d traced the culprit’s remnants and uncovered the rampage terror attempt at the Grand Hotel.
Which meant Lucas Ascanien had saved the lives of over five hundred people staying at that hotel.
‘Honestly didn’t peg him for that… but he is Adrian Ascanien’s brother.’
Countless students idolized Adrian Ascanien, but he seemed like the only one truly close to matching him.
At that level, maybe the palace and Anhalt had truly joined hands, like in Darsote?
He had eyes that were practically Plеромa’s calling card, yet his actions were so utterly imperial mage.
What was even harder to swallow was that he’d only been officially registered with the palace for less than a week. Meaning this merit came purely from his own accumulated skills. No clue how he’d even sniffed out this incident. Couldn’t figure out why a guy like that had dragged himself to school in that state all the way up to last summer.
But….
‘Shouldn’t he be in a good mood right now?’
The Lucas Ascanien right in front of them looked unwell.
It was the weekend, so everyone had free time, but Eschet had been summoned to the palace that morning, returned to school, and that seemed the most comfortable place for him after all.
Everyone except Ascanien.
Ascanien responded softly to greetings, but otherwise his face was completely rotten.
“Why’s an imperial guy dressed so sloppily? Where’s his gloves and hat?”
“Guess he’s the free-spirited type.”
“What the f***…. Think more creatively.”
The third-years snickered and shoved each other around.
Just then, something thumped onto their table.
“What’s this?”
A pink note. The student picked it up and examined both sides.
“They sell paper this color? Where?”
“Forget that and figure out what—”
As he started to unfold it, a shadow fell over him.
Ascanien, who’d been scowling from afar just moments ago, was now smiling and extending his hand.
“Must’ve gone to the wrong table. This is mine.”
It fell on our table, but it’s yours?
A flood of retorts sprang to mind, but with every newspaper in the nation hanging on this student’s every word, he didn’t want to mouth off and make a scene.
The third-year exchanged glances with his friends before reluctantly handing over the note.
“…Oh? Take it then.”
“Thanks.”
Ascanien flashed a grin and turned away.
No one could miss how his expression soured again in an instant.
The third-year students shrugged with baffled looks.
* * *
[Come to think of it, what if you injected your mana into my body? What if I gradually染 your core with my mana? We’re experimenting on people to see if they die or not—will let you know if it succeeds.]
[It’d be good if we mixed our mana and became each other. Could I get pink eyes too? If we each had the other inside us, we’d all become far better mages.]
“…….”
Sunday.
Ulrike gazed at Lucas with a worried expression.
Lucas read the note with a darkened face, tossed it onto the table, and rushed to the bathroom to retch.
He returned to the team’s table, sat down stiffly in his chair.
All the team members were watching his expression.
Every single note that had come to Lucas over the weekend was like this.
“…Lucas looks thinner.”
“He can’t afford to lose more.”
Elias tossed out the comment lightly to Ulrike’s concern, and Lucas shot him an incredulous look.
He forced a courtesy smile with his dark expression before staring blankly down at the table again. He rubbed his face with his hand.
“Leonard.”
“Yeah.”
“Contact HQ and request another uniform.”
Ulrike’s eyes widened.
Over the weekend, Lucas had suffered countless thefts. A shapeshifter, apparently—even disguising as servants? No matter how tight the security, the guy kept pilfering his stuff.
Now it seemed he’d even stolen the uniform bestowed in His Majesty’s name.
Leo’s face hardened as he grimaced slightly.
I expected something like ‘Why me?’, but Leo didn’t react beyond that.
Taking the silence as agreement, Lucas staggered to his feet with a weary look that made everything seem like a hassle—no greeting, no nod.
Narke had cast magic here to sever the space from the academy and stood to follow Lucas.
The two vanished to the mansion in an instant.
In the utterly frozen atmosphere, Ulrike cautiously spoke up.
“…Guys…. This is acting, right…?”
“The lost clothes are real enough.”
Leo replied flatly.
Everything except the theft itself meant his attitude was an act.
Julia clapped and laughed.
“Wow~ Lucas’s acting is seriously good. He must be in a bad mood for real, but it wasn’t like that at first. He can go full-on bad vibes like this too.”
Ulrike nodded.
She’d heard from Elias before that Lucas had said the time had come.
‘To make the stalker drop his guard, I need to act like I’m properly shaken. So whatever I do, it’s not tied to my real feelings—don’t overthink it. It’ll be uncomfortable, but just bear with me through the weekend.’
He’d told Elias that, and it quickly spread to the whole team.
In fact, whenever Narke set up new space magic to separate him from the stalker temporarily, Lucas would smile like his mood had never soured and chat with them normally. No student who knew thought it was anything but a strategy.
‘Seeing that, the bright side must be the real him.’
Ulrike swallowed as she recalled that convincingly real act from earlier.
Whatever his plan to shake off the stalker….
‘I should ask him to hang out soon so his mood doesn’t stay down.’
Ulrike steeled her resolve in her own way.
* * *
‘Success.’
Back at the mansion, I suppressed the leisurely smile threatening to form and furrowed my brows instead.
‘Where was my misstep? What could’ve made the culprit too impatient to hold back and show himself?’
Thoughts from a time already erased.
It hadn’t taken long to reach a conclusion.
‘I never let on that I like Julia.’
That was the verdict I’d reached back then.
No matter how much Chelinggen pushed at me, if I didn’t reciprocate, from the stalker’s perspective, it’d just be annoying but nothing major.
But what if not just Chelinggen, but I acted like I harbored special feelings for him too?
That changes everything.
His chances with me would be gone, after all.
But there was a problem.
Did I have to rope the team into this act again? This time with me fully playing along?
Chelinggen’s act and the Grand Hotel athlete business had already sent the culprit’s wariness through the roof. The odds of him showing up if I pulled the exact same stunt were slim.
So I needed another method that would make it impossible for him to resist appearing before me….
‘While making it look like I have no will to fight.’
I had to seem like I was losing to him.
If I seemed like I was losing, how could he recognize the trap for what it was?
Showing fatigue from the stalking, resignation, lethargy, and the like—signs that he was getting to me—would be a perfect example.
Honestly, up till now, I’d just reported it and gone about blank-faced, so it probably wasn’t much fun for him. Tormentors of any stripe do it to see reactions, so all I had to do was show an intense one, like anyone else would.
Things unfolded as expected after that.
Every time I reacted intensely, he started taunting me more.
And what happens then? More taunts, so I act even angrier.
‘A cycle of deception.’
Of course, I was the only one doing the deceiving. He hadn’t really gotten one over on me.
I slowly rose and eyed the box that could hold three thick books. It was stuffed full of pink notes I’d received so far.
My gaze shifted to the notebook beside it. The list of items stolen over the weekend already filled a page.
‘Hm.’
Going smoothly.
Now he’d be wary of me but subconsciously convinced he held the upper hand. Human subconsciouses worked that way, regrettably.
With my default expression, I felt the tension between my brows as I stroked my chin.
‘Time to wrap this up.’
No need to drag it out.
All preparations were complete—it was time to meet face-to-face.
Having decided, I stared at the box for a long while before putting on a weary expression and scribbled on a memo pad.
[What do you want?]
He’d said he could read replies left anywhere. I tossed the memo out the window and stepped out for a bit.
Surprisingly, when I returned, a note lay on my bed.
It was the lyrics to that folk song I’d heard before: *That you are my dearest*.
Come to me—that’s all, nothing else….
‘You’re gonna have to show up, you bastard….’
Not even a proper answer.
I didn’t feel bad sensing he was gleefully rampaging as I’d intended, but it was perfect fuel to act furious.
I looked toward the window.
I no longer bothered closing the curtains. He’d just reopen them whenever he slipped in and out anyway.
It advertised my apathy, which was handy, but now it doubled as a screen.
I glanced down at the box crammed with thousands of notes and sat on the bed.
Silently, I counted backward from ten in my head. Then I buried my face in my hands and let out a heavy sigh.
I’d never tried anything this big here, but thankfully, it worked fine.
‘…6, 5, 4….’
My nose stung.
When I finished counting, I wiped my tears with my sleeve, stood, and irritably yanked the curtains shut.
Smashing furniture to act out anger wasn’t an option—none of it was mine anyway. I just needed to pick something surprising for the guy surely watching now.
As I moved to another room, I thought.
‘Acting like this alone makes me look like the crazy one.’
But he was observing me from outside. Not in other buildings or on the streets, but definitely.
I opened the safe in the other room and pulled out the familiar rectangular box Leo had left.
Unpleasant memories surfaced.
‘To think I’d have to touch this again.’
I opened the clip, revealing glass vials neatly arranged from level 1 to 10.
What else?
The potion I’d drunk during the Genda Asman incident.
I vividly recalled thinking I’d never touch this crap again.
That resolve hadn’t changed.
If time rewound and I had to face Genda Asman again, I wouldn’t make this choice. I had no desire to deliberately fake emotions in front of someone who could read them just to lower his guard—especially if he was another victim.
But this case was different.
My hand went to the very end of the box.
I took out one vial and headed to the mansion’s rooftop.
Roooar—
The wind assaulted my ears the moment I opened the rooftop door.
Maintaining my hardened expression, I walked to the center of the rooftop and downed the potion clutched in my hand.
Like before, it had no smell as it slid down my throat. The difference? This was a level 10.
Now, when I opened my eyes, I’d develop sudden feelings for the first person I saw.
Or not—Elias hadn’t made that machine noise for nothing, so it wasn’t guaranteed.
But at least to outsiders, it’d be accepted that I’d fallen for the first person I laid eyes on after opening them.
“Come out.”
I said it loud enough to be clearly heard.
No response. I had no choice but to raise my voice again.
“You know what I drank. Come out!”
Silence.
Only the wind continued to whip around my ears.
‘…Yeah.’
Knew it.
Even with the table set, he’d suspect poison—obvious he wouldn’t show.
He wasn’t stupid.
After I’d seen through his ambitious plans and nipped them in the bud, he’d realized he needed more elaborate, thorough setups to toy with me as he pleased. Biting my bait prematurely now, before he was ready, would ruin half his efforts.
That’s why I’d needed to lay the groundwork making it seem like he was winning so far.
‘So he can’t back off after coming this far.’
I closed my eyes and touched the artifact in my ear. One used only among Eschet team members.
I tapped it randomly.
Unsure how many taps, I didn’t know which of the six it’d connect to.
Felt like Russian roulette. Whoever it was, I didn’t love it in this situation—the cog catching on copper sounded just like a cylinder spinning.
Better if the one who picked up could give antidote right away or was a friend who’d already gotten under the stalker’s skin.
Mind blank, I ran my finger over the artifact and pressed the activation button at one spot.
Beep—
Before the connection tone even finished, someone answered.
[Lucas?]
‘Hm.’
The god of probability had sided with me.
I’d connected to someone who could bring antidote immediately—no fear of failure now. Separately, the culprit could never account for this scenario.
I burst into laughter and looked up at the sky.
[Speak, Lucas.]
“…….”
I could tolerate others taking interest in me like this?
Curious how the reverse would feel.
Would he keep scheming, or finally act?
“Come to the rooftop. Now.”
I put force into my voice.
No need to speak that loudly into the artifact, but my intended listener was someone else.
Roooar—!
Fierce wind shook my robe and hair so hard I could barely open my eyes.
Ice-cold hands, like a corpse’s, urgently seized my cheeks. Harried breaths reached my ears—how hastily he’d descended.
I felt my position shift via his space magic.
Didn’t matter.
What mattered was that the target was now perfectly in my trap.
I seized that chill hand, bound it with restraint magic linking it to my own hand, and opened my eyes.
“Now we finally meet.”