Elias seemed unable to emerge from the shock of having gotten sixty years for free from the start, flipping through the booklet this way and that.
Beside me, Narke bowed his head, pressing his fingers to his forehead as his shoulders shook silently. Even without seeing his face, he was 200% laughing.
Ding—!
〈 Chapter 4. Constant Dripping Wears Away a Stone (2) 〉
Proposal 3: [Impression] Score 5 Defense (0/N) (167 hours 59 minutes 57 seconds)
* Route 1 — 〈 Chapter 5. Good Things Require Time (1) 〉
* Route 2 — 〈 Chapter 5. Don't Praise the Day Before Evening Falls 〉
Well… it popped up nicely.
I had some business I needed to take care of anyway, so moving to the next chapter suited me just fine.
"Did you pay money for this?"
"Uh-huh… 1 pell."
I could hear Elias's dry laugh.
To be honest, I had anticipated up to the forties, but I'd never even considered the seventies.
Talk about barking up the wrong tree. Nicolaus hasn't properly revealed a single thing, so it's impossible to easily judge his age.
Still, you could roughly tell he 'seemed like a young person' from his voice, silhouette, and overall demeanor.
So how did this shocking age of seventy-seven come about?
There's something to consider here.
A mage's lifespan varies dramatically depending on the amount of mana they possess.
Therefore, it's not entirely impossible to have a youth-like body even at seventy-seven.
Just look at Luca's father; he's now approaching his seventies, but his body has stopped at that of a non-mage in his forties.
'Still, jumping sixty years isn't a common occurrence.'
It happens occasionally, but you absolutely cannot call it common.
Seeing a seventeen-year-old and calling him seventy-seven…
Even for a mage, that was a bit much.
Of course, that's from my perspective.
It's only too much from the standpoint of knowing my real age. To those who don't know me at all, they could assume he's a seventy-year-old maintaining a young body akin to someone in their thirties or forties.
'Let's think about one more thing.'
The fact that it wasn't vaguely lumped into the 'seventies' means we can't ignore the possibility they learned my age from some document.
'If that's the case… they probably misread a seventeen.'
If it was a handwritten document, that could happen.
Previously, after hearing the story that my name had been entered into the military without my knowledge, I asked Leo about the process of persuading the family elders.
The fact that he could keep a suspicious person by his side despite the gravity of the situation largely hinged on him being a friend from the same department and year as Leo.
They seemed to think there was at least no risk of being swindled.
However, that doesn't mean he told them exactly who Nicolaus was.
Ascanien forms a duchy and is the ruling family of the Anhalt region.
And among noble society, especially the ruling families of various nations within the Empire, there is considerable interaction.
This is the reason Leo couldn't speak freely, even to his own family.
So let's think about it.
One day, your child shows up in the headlines of the newspaper's front page with a pitch-black masked thief-like figure as his attendant, without any prior notice, and on top of that, he stubbornly refuses to tell you who the masked guy is.
Still, vouching that he's a friend from the same department, given he never talks nonsense, they believed him. But in that situation, if he said, 'I need to make an ID card, but there's a slight problem so I have to change and raise the birth year,' would they really be able to trust that?
So, Leo, having already informed his family that some unidentified hunter was a friend from the same department, couldn't possibly manipulate my age on top of that.
Elias, who had by now wiped the absurdity from his face, nodded seriously.
"...Yeah, he's seventy-seven."
"Really?"
"No? I don't know. How can you tell a mage's age just by looking at their face? I didn't ask."
"Ah… I see…"
"What's this, you even deduced why they wear masks? Being hideously ugly… what's this? An affair? What's this about a wanted criminal?!"
Elias burst into crazy laughter, looking at Leo.
Leo sighed with a troubled face and spoke.
"No. Don't believe this stuff."
"Really? Well, I guess if the Wittelsbachs hired him, he can't be a wanted criminal…"
"The other stuff too. Usual conduct is also included in the qualification requirements."
The classroom fell silent for a moment at his unusually laughter-free reply.
A friend who hung out closely with Leo, sensing the mood, tapped his back.
"Hey~ the atmosphere's too heavy! Who knows, maybe you don't know either. You only see him during work hours, how would you know what his daily life is like?"
"What don't I know. If it's not true, I say it's not true."
Leo answered with an exasperated face.
It was understandable to be exasperated.
Seeing him for at least twelve hours a day, he could answer definitively, but he couldn't say that this very Nicolaus was listening to the conversation in the same classroom right now.
"Even so, for you to…"
As the student tactlessly tried to repeat the same thing, Elias rested his chin on his hand and looked at him.
"Guys, enough~ Are you trying to say the Bavarian royal family hired such trash?"
"...."
Well, when you put it that way…
A dry laugh escaped me.
"...No… that's not what I meant."
"That's exactly what you meant."
Elias answered with a smile.
"Didn't this newspaper get someone killed last year? And it's still popular?"
"...."
Elias snatched the booklet he had placed on the desk and spoke to the student standing before him.
"If you understand what I'm saying, don't believe what's in here. Can I take this?"
"Huh? Uh… yeah."
The student answered with a reluctant face.
The situation ended as the professor entered the classroom for roll call.
As everyone sat down with awkward expressions, Elias glanced at me and wiggled his eyebrows.
* * *
Upon entering the meeting place, the gazes of the friends who had arrived earlier instantly focused on me.
Seeing them gathered on their own on a day with no scheduled meeting, it seemed today's events had been shocking for them too.
Of course, having anticipated they would gather, this wasn't an unexpected reaction.
"Aigo, venerable sir… Uahahahaha!"
Elias, with a serious face, started to rise from his seat, then collapsed onto the table laughing like a madman. Leo looked down at him with eyes mixed with contempt and pity.
If I were in a bad mood, I might have retaliated, but I just found it laughable too. Honestly, seventy-seven was excessively ridiculous.
Narke, suppressing a snickering laugh, asked.
"Lucas."
"Yeah."
"How does it feel to become a seventy-seven-year-old, Leo's eighth cousin, a wanted criminal, a missing grand mage, and the ugliest person in the Empire in one go?"
"No particular thoughts."
"Dasrote says you're currently seeing seven people. It's the preview for the next issue."
Narke folded and shook the back cover of the magazine.
Leaving morality aside, I'm not sure that's logistically possible time-wise.
It seems the next issue is planning to go all-in on that…
Indeed, seeing them talk about stories unrelated to my achievements and unproductive, it's definitely a tabloid.
"They seem to have lost touch with reality in their attempt to report too sensationally."
"Aren't you resentful about the claim you wear a mask due to a complex about your looks?"
"Well. In context, it's a hypothesis one could consider at least once."
It seems less suspicious and has no ethical issues compared to saying I can't reveal it for personal reasons. Maybe I should switch to using that line myself.
As I pondered, Narke laughed.
"But you don't seem too bothered. That's a relief."
If they had cleverly mixed fact with fiction, I might have been angry, but since it's utterly absurd from start to finish, I've actually calmed down.
It's just funny to think the entire nation will see that nonsense and wonder if it's true or not.
Unlike Narke, Elias, who had been openly expressing his bursting laughter, caught his breath and asked.
"Hahahaha… hoo… Luca, but honestly, reading it made me furious, don't you want to immediately take off the mask and smash everything to pieces? If you just take off the mask, all that nonsense ends."
"It's fine. Listening to nonsense is much better than messing things up."
I briefly opened the status window to check the impression score.
Lucas René Ascanien
Impression: -9.9 (+0.1) [+5.0015131]
In that time, the impression score had gone from the last digits being 5979 to hitting 15131.
It hasn't started declining yet, but according to the proposal's content, it seems it will start falling in earnest from now on.
Even so, it's not a difficult task.
This proposal is a breather for me.
That doesn't mean the opponent is easy. People who kill with a pen can't be easy.
But this problem isn't a problem for me; it's actually a benefit.
That's why I can afford to ease up a bit.
The social image Nicolaus is gaining is similar to my older brother's in the past. The kind of person who gives and gives to society without asking for anything in return.
Separate from my issues, my brother would have some level of interest in such a Nicolaus.
The fact that he is someone my brother might take an interest in and look into. That's where a problem arises.
Therefore, I must block all paths through which one could guess who Nicolaus is.
Then, Leo set down Dasrote as if slamming it and spoke quietly.
"Lucas."
"What."
"You haven't read this properly, have you? If you'd read it all, you wouldn't be able to remain so composed."
"I read it."
At my answer, Elias raised his eyebrows and whistled.
Leo watched me silently.
"I read it from beginning to end. I need to know how the opponent is portraying me to deal with it properly. I can't ignore reporting that might trip me up."
"Right, then you know well. This isn't about being wronged or not, it's just character defamation. Lucas, you are a student of the Empire's 2nd Educational Institute, but Nicolaus is not. Dasrote is treating you as an adult and saying all sorts of disgusting things."
That's a tabloid for you.
Not surprising at all.
Even if it weren't Nicolaus, countless politicians and celebrities have been targets of tabloids like Dasrote.
There are even some who, tormented by them, ended their lives by suicide.
"So what do you want to do?"
"It's not what I 'want' to do, but what I 'will' do. I'll halt the distribution of Dasrote in Bavarian territory."
"That's a good warning. Just threaten, don't actually carry it out. They'll back down on their own."
"What are you talking about, after having read it all!"
Leo frowned and stood up from his seat.
"Two-thirds of the Empire is under the Imperial family's control. If they can't stop Dasrote there, what's the point of driving them out of Bavaria, which is one-seventh of the Empire?"
"...."
Of course, it's meaningless in the sense of 'cutting off distribution for the purpose of making Dasrote unreadable,' but it's not completely meaningless.
Though expressed as one-seventh, making it seem small, as an individual kingdom it holds the largest territory after the kingdoms ruled by the Imperial family, and has the second largest population.
It's not a place with vast land but no substance; its economic power is formidable. Its influence is also great from completely dominating magical medicine.
So, from a businessman's perspective, it's not a simple matter.
"People without hope have nothing to lose. Business is the same. If distribution is actually halted in Bavaria, Dasrote would naturally be frustrated. It would deal a massive blow to their sales. But conversely, that means they can bite back like mad at Bavaria, which has permanently left their customer pool."
Leo glared at me, then sighed and sat back down.
I watched Leo taking deep breaths and continued.
"Sorry for speaking harshly. But you already know a mere threat is enough. A threat only has meaning if it remains a threat."
"Right, Leo knows too, he must just be really angry."
Narke said, gesturing with his eyes toward Leo as if to indicate there was no need to give him a realistic explanation now.
It seemed he had used his insight ability.
He can't help but be angry.
Even superficially, they are slandering a person chosen by the Wittelsbachs, a mage trusted by the Crown Prince. In a way, this isn't just insulting me, but insulting the royal family as well.
Probably not just Leo, but other Wittelsbachs are also reacting negatively to Dasrote's actions.
"...Right. I got worked up. Sorry."
"No. It's a topic that would understandably make you angry."
"It's a topic for you too."
Leo said, looking straight at me as if driving in a nail.
"Yeah, that's right. I am angry. Honestly, I was at first."
"Not now?"
"Right."
There are several reasons why I'm not taking significant damage from this.
First.
Unlike others who became targets of Dasrote as themselves, I am wearing the fictional persona of Nicolaus, and I will reveal within three months at most that he is a fabricated character.
If I had to live as Nicolaus for life, I would take it seriously. That would no longer be a fictional character, but another me.
And, the moment it's revealed that Nicolaus is me, 95% of the text written in Dasrote will turn into printed garbage.
There's no need for deep explanation, because just looking at it, nothing matches.
Second.
There's a blind spot in the first point. Couldn't they transfer the suspicions about Nicolaus onto me after the identity is revealed?
There's no such suspicion possible from the start, and even if there were, there's no need to worry.
As mentioned before, articles about students are heavily censored. Photos and videos are managed even more strictly.
This applies to all students receiving Imperial support, so even after advancing to the university-level Empire's 1st Educational Institute, one is protected from such wasteful and unproductive gossip.
In short, there's no sustainability to the controversy.
A fire needs firewood to burn.
I unfolded the part where the number seventy-seven was written.
"Why seventy-seven specifically?"
"Just a guess?"
Elias answered leisurely.
"Well, maybe, but what if this is the result of confusing it with seventeen?"
"Must be terrible handwriting. But well… sometimes you see people who write like that."
"Right… Anyway, being a tabloid doesn't mean they list only delusions from start to finish. They also need evidence to make their claims convincing, and a foundation corresponding to that evidence. Exaggeration and fabrication are definitely mixed in everywhere, but it's not like they do absolutely no investigation."
"So."
At Leo's words, I gestured toward the magazine he had set down.
"Did you only check Dasrote?"
"Yeah."
I took out another magazine from my bag.
"Other places put out similar content too. Of course, not as thorough as Dasrote."
Elias unfolded the magazine I took out and laughed.
"Why does this one say twenties?"
This is exactly why it's beneficial for me.
As I thought before, I can disrupt the information.
—-----------
T/N:
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