Shepherd Wizard (Novel) - Chapter 104
Chapter 104
Read it only at Utoon.net!
Discord
In the early dawn, Turan finished reviewing all the materials collected by the spies, carefully organized them back into place, and left the house.
After silently closing the door, he took out a long wooden box from his large-capacity pouch.
This was an item he had instructed several settlers to make during the land reclamation project in the south.
A storage box designed to separately store hair from different people.
Inside were strands of hair from his two companions, Bije’s feathers, hair from Solif’s father Godis, and now the Zahar knight’s hair had joined his collection.
If he ever needed to find the knight again, he could use this to track him down easily.
After sleeping until noon at an inn to recover from his night of surveillance, Turan enjoyed a delicious lunch and then entered the Karmain nobles’ residential area again.
Unlike his previous late-night visit, this time it was daylight, and everyone could be seen moving about energetically.
‘Let’s see, if the knights’ quarters are over there… I need to go to the next intersection.’
Based on the basic knowledge obtained from Asiz and the information from the Zahar spy, Karmain didn’t have any particular factions to speak of.
Like Ravitas, the family head was still young at around one hundred fifty years old, so there were no succession issues.
If one had to categorize them, they could be divided into the upper-ranking nobles including the family head, the young nobles expected to reach similar status, and everyone else below upper-middle rank.
A secret meeting of the top ranks would naturally include only those nobles from the mainstream faction.
Turan’s goal was to secretly replace one of the attendees, and he had already decided who that would be.
‘Found him, Oneil Karmain.’
The owner of the mansion Turan had reached, Oneil was the son of Jemel Karmain, who was the current Karmain family head’s brother and a top-ranking noble. Oneil himself was a young noble with high potential.
Someone of his status would likely be attending the “secret meeting.”
As Turan entered through an open window after circling the perimeter, a sharp noise greeted him, echoing through the mansion.
It sounded like a glass object shattering.
“Get out, you bastards! You call this cooking…”
“E-excuse us!”
“Mani, Mani? Pull yourself together!”
“Shh, carefully take him out…”
Following the sounds, Turan saw a servant bleeding from his forehead and unconscious, being carried out of a room by two other servants.
Behind them, a young noble was sitting in an armchair, fuming. His magical power felt around the lower end of the upper ranks.
This must be Oneil Karmain, the owner of the mansion and Turan’s target.
‘Did he throw a glass that cut his head? His temperament is already showing.’
Whatever had angered him so much, Oneil stormed out of the dining room despite an elaborate meal laid out on the table.
Thanks to this, the delicious seafood dishes of the Avaccha-style feast became the property of the servants who had to clean up.
Perhaps accustomed to serving nobility, they silently ate the leftover food and only began complaining once their master was out of earshot.
“He’s really going too far these days. How many times does he throw these tantrums in a day?”
“Exactly. This is so delicious, what could possibly be wrong with it?”
“He’s just throwing fits because he can’t control his temper… Thanks to that, at least we get to eat well.”
One servant mumbled with his mouth full of what appeared to be a magical beast—a shrimp dish the size of his forearm.
It certainly looked appetizing, so Turan too secretly slipped a piece of grilled salmon into his mouth while the servants weren’t looking.
“Hey, don’t eat everything, leave some. We need to save portions for Tonin and the others who took him away.”
“At least this time he only broke a glass. I wonder if it’s because he got scolded by the great master after the Boshu family was beaten to death last time.”
“Great master? More like a great bastard who lets someone like that run wild.”
“I wish I’d been born a noble too.”
Perhaps because they were getting heated, the servants began hurling insults at Oneil that would warrant immediate hanging if they reached any noble’s ears.
They called his parents who birthed and neglected such a person all kinds of names, wishing he would go on a pilgrimage somewhere and die horribly.
While there might be many nobles disliked by their own people, few were hated to this extent.
‘Indeed, I’ve come to the right place.’
The natural order of the human world was that mages, as descendants of gods, protected humans, and humans in turn served mages.
Nobles raised with such education might treat commoners as insignificant but rarely directly abused or tormented them.
Such behavior was considered exceedingly “undignified” for a noble.
Generally, knights and nobles didn’t particularly enjoy the sadistic pleasure of abusing the weak, at least compared to commoners.
But occasionally, deviants like this Oneil were born who didn’t adhere to such principles.
The kind who directly harassed commoners to an extent that made even other sensible nobles frown.
This was another reason Turan had chosen Oneil as his disguise target.
To erase traces of his infiltration, he would need to eliminate the person, and it felt less uncomfortable to kill someone so despicable.
As Turan listened to the servants’ complaints, he followed Oneil’s presence outside the mansion.
Perhaps wanting to take a walk, Oneil wandered through the garden before suddenly creating an ice whip from thin air and began slashing all the nearby garden trees.
A gardener who had been trimming branches nearby screamed in horror at the sight.
“Ugh-!”
“I don’t like the shape. Replant them all!”
“Y-yes, master…”
After demoralizing the gardener, Oneil continued his rampage throughout the estate—demolishing a wall because the stables smelled, crushing a knight’s foot for merely glancing at him as he passed by, and committing all manner of atrocities.
Turan, hiding and watching from behind, couldn’t help but laugh incredulously.
‘I’d heard stories, but… he really is like a spoiled child.’
Considering Oneil was already over sixty years old, there was nothing to say except that he truly failed to act his age.
But surprisingly, even this behavior was apparently somewhat restrained by his standards.
‘Didn’t they say he was recently scolded by his father for beating his concubine and her family to death?’
Oneil kept three concubines instead of a formal partner, and rumors said that after one concubine died from his excessive abuse, he killed her father and brother who had come to protest.
Even though concubines ranked lower than formal partners, this was extremely unreasonable behavior, so Oneil had been severely reprimanded by his father and placed under house arrest.
Apparently, the number of servants he had deliberately or accidentally killed since his younger days was not small, which explained why everyone feared him and why he couldn’t find a formal partner.
Turan continued following Oneil, meticulously analyzing his speech patterns, gestures, and expressions.
‘Last time when I imitated Kadram, I was too hasty. That’s why I was almost caught by someone close to him… This time I need to be more thorough.’
* * *
Three days after infiltrating Oneil’s mansion.
Turan had invested all his waking hours in observing and imitating every aspect of Oneil.
Just as actors he had seen in the past recreated historical figures, he wanted to perfectly reproduce all of Oneil’s mannerisms.
He even observed him gambling with friends invited to his mansion for entertainment and his intimate moments with women in the bedroom, capturing every minute habit.
During this time, Oneil’s father, Jemel Karmain, suddenly visited the mansion.
“I hear rumors you’re still behaving like a hooligan everywhere.”
“Father.”
“You know there’s an important family meeting in four days, correct?”
“Yes.”
“I’d like to tell you not to bother coming, but none of my other children match your ability, so I’ll let you have a seat. But you absolutely must not cause trouble there.”
“Yes…”
Oneil, who was practically a tyrant within his mansion, couldn’t even meet his father’s eyes and answered in a diminished voice.
In any case, confirming that Oneil would be among the meeting attendees was good news.
Given how terribly depraved Oneil was, Turan had worried he might not be invited to such an important gathering.
‘Well, even a great family wouldn’t have many nobles of his caliber.’
Moreover, while Oneil had personality issues, he possessed upper-rank magical power with room for growth as his limit hadn’t been reached.
Considering that even in a great family, there might not be twenty such talented individuals, it would be wasteful to discard him over personality problems.
After clicking his tongue at his timid son, Jemel left the mansion.
“Damn it, damn it, DAMN IT-!”
Predictably, once his father departed, Oneil demolished the entire reception room in a rage, during which one servant suffered a broken arm.
Having received confirmation, Turan began a simple experiment the next day.
“Hey.”
“Yes, master!”
“Bring me some tea. Any kind will do.”
“Right away!”
Taking advantage of Oneil’s absence from the mansion, Turan adopted his appearance and clothing and ordered a servant to bring tea.
Whether due to his practice paying off or the lack of emotional connection needed to notice something amiss, the servant brought the tea without a hint of suspicion.
After several more discreet interactions with different servants, Turan became confident that his acting had matured sufficiently.
On the morning of the sixth day.
As usual, Turan stood beside Oneil, who had fallen asleep alone after violently taking a pretty concubine, and gazed down at his face illuminated by moonlight.
After staring at his face briefly, Turan drew Haram’s dagger and slashed his throat, causing blood to spray everywhere.
Just like the Arabion knights facing Zahar in the past, Oneil died instantly in his deep sleep without realizing his demise.
It was an incredibly anticlimactic end for a high-ranking noble with upper-rank power.
Seeing this, anyone would understand why Arabion nobles were so obsessed with security measures.
‘Considering what you’ve done, this was a merciful death.’
As expected, despite his behavior, no divine soul suddenly emerged from within him.
If that had happened, Turan would have had to immediately abandon all plans and flee, so it was fortunate.
Turan absorbed Oneil’s magical power and extracted all the blood flowing from his severed neck that had soaked into the bed and blankets, storing it in a container he had prepared.
Afterward, he placed the container and the corpse in his large-capacity pouch and assumed Oneil’s appearance, completing the perfect replacement.
From now on, he was Oneil Karmain.
* * *
“This is too cold!”
On the day of the meeting, Turan brazenly ate breakfast, throwing the stew on the floor and tormenting the servants just as Oneil would have done.
Even this was generous compared to the original, so the servants cleared away the dishes without showing any signs of distress.
After finishing his meal, Turan, just as Oneil would have done, invited a few friends—or more accurately, subordinates—for a simple card game to once again verify that his disguise was perfect.
As evening fell and the appointed time arrived, a carriage stopped in front of Oneil’s mansion.
“It’s time for the meeting, master.”
“I know.”
Oneil’s butler guided him with a posture as rigid as marble, but Turan could sense with his sharp intuition that the butler utterly despised Oneil.
Once Turan boarded, the carriage headed directly to the center of the Karmain residential area, toward the family head’s residence.
‘So far, so good…’
Based on his experience, while there were several magical devices that could detect Zahar’s invisibility, there was nothing that could see through this mimicry mask.
Magical devices that detect other magical devices generally didn’t exist either.
As expected, the mysterious barrier installed at the family head’s residence didn’t trigger any alarm when Turan passed through it.
When the carriage stopped in front of the residence, Turan opened the door and stepped out.
“Oneil? What a surprise to see you here. I thought your brother wouldn’t invite you.”
Several Karmain nobles were already in front of the mansion, and a middle-aged man approached Turan with a sardonic expression.
According to the information he had gathered, this would be Oneil’s maternal uncle.
“Yes, uncle… Father was kind enough to allow it.”
“Hm? Why are you suddenly calling me ‘uncle’ when you used to just call me ‘sir’?”
It had been difficult to capture such minute details, so Turan awkwardly evaded the question and quickly moved away.
Fortunately, since this resembled Oneil’s usual submissive attitude toward the powerful, no one seemed suspicious.
Shortly afterward, Turan entered the meeting room inside the family head’s residence along with other Karmain nobles. There were sixteen attendees in total.
These were the most powerful members among the more than hundred Karmain nobles.
And at the head seat, Rodor Karmain, the family head, was looking down at them with sharp eyes.
He had an intelligent appearance with a long beard, which gave him a dignified presence despite his young age.
‘So that’s the Karmain family head…’
Presumably, the Freya god called “The Lawyer” would be residing within him.
It would make sense that he wouldn’t entrust such a suitable host to a subordinate.
And there was a high probability that among the meeting participants, there would be other vessels containing gods.
Though at the moment, it was impossible to guess who they might be just by looking.
Soon after the meeting began, the topic of Arabion came up just as Turan had anticipated.
“How are the war preparations progressing?”
“The situation isn’t very favorable. The sea routes have been completely cut off recently…”
“Additionally, the northern sea winds have recently calmed, creating conditions similar to the southern sea, which has slowed our ships.”
Fortunately, Oneil, whom Turan was impersonating, was young enough that he wasn’t expected to offer opinions or answer questions.
After much discussion, the topic Turan had been waiting for finally came up.
“Ranusa, is there still no communication with the merfolk?”
“No. Currently, all merfolk kingdoms from whales onward are refusing communication. Even the Blue Coral Crown’s commands aren’t working.”
The Blue Coral Crown.
This seemed to be the secret behind Karmain’s control over the merfolk.
Judging by the name, it was likely some kind of Holy Relic.
“Tsk, should we have subdued the Giant Sea Serpent’s apparition when it first appeared?”
“It couldn’t be helped, could it? We were facing an important issue at that time. By the time everything was resolved, the merfolk had already caused trouble.”
So that’s why Karmain nobles hadn’t intervened when the Giant Sea Serpent’s apparition was rampaging—they too were dealing with some issue at the time.
What could it have been?
Though curious, Turan couldn’t ask anyone at this gathering.
If it was something Oneil should already know, even asking would raise suspicion.
“Anyway, if the Blue Coral Crown isn’t working, it’s likely the merfolk have regained the protection of the ancient Giant Sea Serpent. That’s also the cause of the recent magical beast attacks. Once the war is over, I’ll negotiate with them directly. It’s problematic if we can’t control the merfolk.”
“With the family head taking action, we can rest assured.”
Unlike the Arabion family head, the Karmain family head actively involved himself in family affairs.
Given that no one found this unusual, it seemed this was his normal approach.
As Turan sat quietly gathering information, the family head suddenly clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention.
“Now that we’ve concluded our internal discussions, I’d like to invite an important guest.”
“Ah, the one you mentioned before…?”
“Yes. Enter!”
At the family head’s command, a door at one side of the meeting room that had remained firmly shut opened, and a person entered.
A mysterious top-rank noble who had been standing outside throughout the meeting, possibly guarding the room.
He was a middle-aged man with black hair combed back, gray eyes, and rather thin, sharp features.
‘Was there a Karmain noble who looked like that?’
The Zahar spy’s materials included crudely drawn portraits of Karmain nobles, but none resembled this man.
Could he be some secret weapon that Karmain had hidden?
Yet somehow, that face didn’t seem entirely unfamiliar.
It was difficult to identify exactly who he was, but it felt like someone Turan had met frequently…
While puzzling over this strange sense of familiarity, the family head introduced the man to the assembly.
“This will be your first time meeting him. This is Talis Zahar, who has come from the distant desert to mediate this war. Please welcome him.”