Shepherd Wizard (Novel) - Chapter 103
Chapter 103
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Discord
After visiting the Berk family for about two days, Turan stayed in Asiz’s room, gathering various information about the Karmain family through the books that Asiz brought him.
There was much to learn—from the entire history of their family’s establishment to information about the vassals under their command.
Of course, Orem’s library had several pieces of knowledge about the Karmain family, but the problem was that all the information there was outdated.
“Turn the pages faster, would you? How can a young man like you read so slowly?”
“Elder, you’re just too fast. I’ve already finished reading this.”
Turan replied to the complaining librarian as he turned a page.
Originally a spirit of the library, the librarian had the ability to never forget the contents of books he had read once, so even if Turan forgot something later, he could ask and be told.
“A spirit, you say? I wish I could see it too…”
“Hmph, treating me like some kind of spectacle.”
Of course, to Asiz watching from the side, it merely looked like Turan was talking to himself.
Thus, during the day, Turan diligently collected information, and around midnight, he infused magical power into the hand mirror to attempt communication with Meisa.
Since they had agreed in advance to try communicating at this time, it wasn’t long before magic was infused from the other side, causing a distortion.
[Ah, it worked! Turan, can you see me clearly?]
“Yes. It’s working more cleanly than I expected at this distance. The magical power consumption is also fairly manageable.”
Meisa’s eyes sparkled with delight that the magical device she had created was functioning properly.
At that moment, someone pushed her aside and thrust their face into view.
[Let me see too, oh… are you really in the Dakein Plains right now? That’s amazing.]
As Solif slipped in to show his face, Meisa frowned slightly behind him and tapped his back firmly as if telling him to move aside.
“Remove your burdensome face.”
[Burdensome? Such harsh words for this handsome face.]
After exchanging light banter with Solif, Turan then had to spend some time consoling Bije through the mirror, who was still upset.
At least he was relieved to confirm that Bije had returned safely.
After the situation had settled down somewhat, Turan gave Asiz the opportunity to face Meisa as well.
“Me-Meisa?”
[It’s been a while, Asiz.]
“Is it really you? Your hair color and eyes are the same, but…”
Asiz, who only remembered her from when she looked like a skinny skeleton, gaped with his jaw nearly dropping at Meisa’s transformed appearance.
Anyone who knew her original self would have asked “who are you?” without exception, so his reaction was understandable.
After staring at Meisa’s face with amazement for a while, Asiz spoke softly.
“You don’t look as much like your aunt as I thought.”
[Do I not?]
“No. If anything, you look more like my mother… Anyway, it’s really fortunate that you’ve stopped that foolish fasting. You never even pretended to listen when I said it.”
[Ahaha…]
Meisa responded with an awkward laugh to Asiz’s words, who still believed she had not been eating for the sake of flight magic.
“You didn’t stop because you wanted to look pretty for someone, did you?”
[Th-that’s not it.]
Asiz, who had been teasing her excitedly, noticed Meisa’s blue eyes shifting nervously, glanced briefly at Turan, then tapped the mirror to change the subject.
“By the way, is this magical device really something you made?”
[Yes. I didn’t know it before, but I seem to have talent in this area too. Could you give me some advice?]
“I’m not sure if my skills will be helpful… What part are you having trouble with?”
Though still inexperienced, Asiz, who had received proper education as an enchanter, could pass on several useful techniques to Meisa.
About twenty minutes later, when the magical power was depleted and the connection cut off, Asiz turned to Turan with an expression of deep emotion.
“Meisa has completely recovered her health! And her expression looks so much better than before… I’m glad she seems to be doing well.”
Turan chuckled as he watched Asiz shed tears of joy.
He had known from their first meeting that this friend was tender-hearted and prone to tears.
“The joy of eating is important for living, after all.”
“That’s right. Ah… this is really good. Seeing her face like this makes all my accumulated worries disappear.”
Looking at Asiz’s bright smile, Turan too smiled gently.
* * *
The day after this dramatic family reunion.
Having finally gathered all the necessary information, Turan left the Berk family.
His large capacity pouch contained an additional twenty or so books that Asiz had purchased separately.
‘You’ll be bored, so it’ll be good to have these to read.’
Asiz had casually handed them over with those words, but the books he gave weren’t items to be treated so lightly.
Although the Dakein Plains was a region abundant in resources where luxury goods were easier to obtain, thick books with neatly transcribed interiors like these weren’t cheap.
He had probably spent several months’ worth of his allowance to acquire them.
In return, Turan poured a heap of unrefined gold and silver nuggets onto Asiz’s bed before leaving the mansion.
It was better to do it this way, since Asiz would undoubtedly refuse if Turan tried to give it to him directly.
After leaving Jabilin City, Turan changed his appearance to that of another traveler and leisurely walked across the plains.
The increasingly cool breeze and the yellow, ripening wheat fields swaying announced the arrival of autumn.
‘It would be nice if our pioneering land could become this prosperous… Is the soil composition important? It would be good to take some and see if it can be changed to be like this later.’
While walking northeast, Turan picked up a handful of soil from the ground and pondered as he examined it.
It was no secret that Arabion nobles scattered lightning over their farmlands every year after the harvest.
Though he didn’t know the exact principle behind it, perhaps the same effect could be achieved if they did something similar on their reclaimed land.
Of course, it would be difficult to maintain without an Arabion noble to provide lightning every year.
After walking around the outskirts of cities, Turan reached a suitably uninhabited area, cast invisibility magic, and flew up into the air.
This way, even if he happened to encounter an Arabion noble wandering around, there would be nothing to worry about.
After flying eastward toward the Karmain family’s territory for several days.
Conserving his magical power appropriately as he flew, Turan arrived at the slash-and-burn village where they had fought Bisen in the past… As the sun was setting, a villager pointed a hunting spear at him as he casually entered the village.
“Who goes there!”
“I’m just a traveler who got lost on the road… Could I perhaps stay for just one night?”
“Our village has no houses for guests. If you go down the mountain, there’s a larger village, so go there!”
“The sun has already set, how can I go down now? Please let me stay just one night, for the sake of saving a life. I’m fine with sleeping outside.”
“…Tch, stay quietly and leave. Don’t cause any trouble!”
Perhaps due to the aftermath of the tragedy Bisen had caused, the villagers were extremely wary of outsiders.
Turan spent one night there, gathering information through simple chatter with the people who were monitoring him.
“By the way, I heard rumors that a noble who burns villagers has appeared again recently. Is this village safe?”
“Haven’t seen anything like that. If there had been, we wouldn’t be alive, would we?”
Judging by the intact state of the village, it seemed that Bisen’s death was still well concealed.
After confirming traces of his past presence, Turan left the slash-and-burn village as soon as dawn broke and headed for Avaccha, the capital of Karmain.
Unlike before, when he had simply moved generally eastward toward the sea, this time he walked along the great roads of the old empire, mingling with commoners and picking up various stories.
“I heard that recently, a lot of magical beasts came rushing out from the sea in droves.”
“Was there such an incident?”
“That’s what they say. The high nobles quickly stopped it, but there was considerable damage. Don’t go near the coast carelessly for a while. I saw one myself, and it was truly horrifying. That huge monster sweeping through the village…”
An old peddler, sharing a campfire with Turan in an open space, gave this advice while shuddering.
What could have caused marine magical beasts to suddenly attack the land?
Since there was a time difference, it was unlikely to be the effect of the Giant Sea Serpent’s rampage; rather, it was more likely a side effect of the merfolk using the Giant Sea Serpent’s corpse.
‘Or perhaps the merfolk deliberately drove the magical beasts toward the coast…’
Turan hoped that the merfolk hadn’t done so.
After all, he didn’t want to be in a situation where they had to kill allies who had fought together against a powerful enemy.
After walking along the road and gathering various stories for three days.
When Turan finally entered Avaccha, the capital of Karmain, for the second time, he realized that the city’s atmosphere had completely changed from before.
The sailors and workers moving around all wore gloomy expressions, and the voices of merchants shouting to sell their goods contained malice rather than cheerfulness.
The vitality and liveliness he had felt before was now almost impossible to find.
After walking around the inner city briefly, Turan headed straight for the residence of the Karmain family members.
‘The security here is also quite thorough… Well, I suppose it’s natural since Zahar would also be a potential enemy.’
Though not as extensive as Arabion’s, which had constructed a fortress of light and operated checkpoints, the nobles of the Karmain main house had also sealed off their headquarters with high walls and lived inside.
Considering that important members of Ravitas lived outside their main house, this level of security measures was extraordinarily strict.
However, unlike Arabion, which thoroughly sealed even the sky, the top was open here, so Turan was able to enter relatively easily by using invisibility and flight spells to descend from above.
‘If they’re going to war with Arabion soon, they should pay more attention to the sky.’
Of course, this was probably because they would easily spot any approaching Arabion nobles flying in, but still.
Having entered the interior, Turan immediately heightened his senses and infiltrated the mansions of nobles with powerful magic, just as he had done at the Arabion main house.
Although they had various methods of sealing their libraries, Turan, who had experience breaking into such places several times, skillfully bypassed their defense systems and searched through the libraries.
What he hadn’t anticipated was that the results of such thorough searches would be less impressive than expected.
‘Not here either…’
As he exited the third mansion, Turan clicked his tongue in disappointment.
Despite searching through the libraries of three high nobles, he couldn’t find much useful information.
At best, there were only the usual scandals that could be found in any major family, like those he had exposed at the Arabion main house.
Turan hadn’t come here just for these trivial matters.
His goal was to discover how the collusion between Karmain and the merfolk had been established, whether that relationship was still maintained, and if it had broken, how it had happened.
It seemed that, like the Arabion nobles, these people also didn’t keep secrets related to their gods in their residences.
Leaving the Karmain nobles’ residences with disappointment, Turan spent the night at a well-equipped inn nearby.
Fortunately, unlike when he had infiltrated the Arabion main house, access was relatively free.
Sleeping in cramped corners of mansions every day was more tiring than one might expect.
‘Perhaps I should disguise myself as an insider and search more secretive places…’
The next day, while wandering around Avaccha city deep in thought, Turan heard the cry of a street vendor.
Unlike others who were depressed or filled with malice, this voice was quite cheerful.
“Get your skewers here-! Freshly grilled skewers!”
A bearded man of about thirty was shouting with a strong voice while busily working in front of a sizzling grill.
He seemed quite skilled, as customers kept coming, and Turan, who had been watching this scene, soon got in line and bought a skewer.
“Keep the change.”
“Thank you, customer! Enjoy your meal!”
While eating the quite delicious pork skewer, Turan focused his consciousness on the inner self of the busy street vendor.
Eyes glaring in pitch-black darkness.
A knight bearing the symbol of Zahar selling skewers in such a place—it was suspicious by anyone’s standards.
‘A spy sent from Zahar… judging by his being a knight, perhaps lower in rank than Leto. Should I capture and interrogate him? Or follow him?’
After a moment’s consideration, Turan decided on the second option.
He was quite confident in opening people’s mouths through pain, but there were also those in the world who wouldn’t yield to such methods.
‘Perhaps looking into this might unexpectedly yield good information.’
Directly rummaging through the Karmain main house meant having to collect necessary information from an indiscriminately sprawling mass, but intercepting a spy’s information meant obtaining only the results that someone else had collected and selected.
It was obvious which would be more useful.
That evening, Turan waited until the street vendor closed his business and then followed him leisurely while using invisibility magic.
Of course, the street vendor had no idea that someone was following him directly as he unwittingly led Turan to an old house on the outskirts of Avaccha.
“Ugh…”
The spy who entered the house stretched and pretended to be tired.
Skewer selling would hardly be challenging for someone of knight caliber, but was he so well-trained that he would act this way even when no one was watching?
After organizing his business items and washing himself, the spy lay down on the bed and began to snore, at which point Turan finally started searching various places in the old house.
After searching for nearly thirty minutes, he discovered that the spy’s collected materials were hidden under the floorboards beneath the bed.
Perhaps feeling there was no need for encryption, the spy’s materials were organized in a way that Turan could read without much difficulty.
‘Positions of Karmain family members, their movement routes, conversation contents… he’s investigating quite thoroughly.’
This information was likely obtained through internal collaborators or subordinates.
There was no way he could gather such information just by grilling skewers here.
This street vendor was probably a mid-level officer who compiled information sent by subordinates.
It was a fairly good strategy, considering that a skewer vendor would hardly be suspected under normal circumstances.
He probably never imagined that someone passing by who could detect the magical power of other mages would notice the presence of a knight-level street vendor.
While reading about the family members documented by the spies, Turan came across information about Bisen.
‘Left with several members of a close vassal family and lost contact… Family members assume they’re on a pilgrimage outside the family’s territory.’
It seemed the Karmain family hadn’t even realized Bisen’s death, let alone the deaths of her entourage.
Well, it was natural that they would be difficult to find by ordinary methods, given that they were killed and buried in an uninhabited area…
Clicking his tongue, Turan continued to review the spy’s materials, when he suddenly widened his eyes at an underlined section.
‘On the second day of the ninth month, a secret meeting of the family’s executives is scheduled. If possible, infiltrate and collect the content.’
A secret meeting scheduled for a week later, and one that only high-ranking members would attend.
Turan was convinced that if he could secretly enter this meeting, he could collect some meaningful information.