Shepherd Wizard (Novel) - Chapter 136
Chapter 136
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Discord
After their conversation concluded, Turan left the unnamed nomadic tribe with Mago.
The tribe members lamented the departure of the shaman who had protected them and healed all manner of wounds and illnesses.
“Are you truly leaving us?”
“We haven’t even repaid your kindness, great shaman. Please continue to stay with us.”
Hearing this, Mago nervously glanced sideways at Turan, seemingly worried that the noble might slaughter these commoners for daring to block his path.
Of course, having no such intention, Turan simply stood silently and gave a subtle nod, signaling for Mago to handle the situation.
“Now, everyone, please calm down. If I survive this mission and my life remains intact, I shall return here.”
“Oh, is that true?”
“We believed in you, Healing Hands!”
Turan thought inwardly that Mago would need to return to the Siraf wetlands once this matter was concluded, making this a promise he couldn’t keep.
Despite this thought, Turan refrained from contradicting him in front of the tribe members.
After all, they had cleared the path for their departure.
As they received everyone’s warm send-off and left the tribe behind, Turan asked Mago who was walking slightly behind:
“That promise just now, did you truly mean it?”
“What? Ah, certainly. I’m actually considering settling here permanently after this mission concludes.”
With a somewhat transcendent expression, Mago explained how he had come to stay with this tribe.
While searching for the Ravitas traitor, he had been caught in conflicts, lost his companions, and been left badly wounded. The tribe members had rescued him and nursed him back to health with the utmost care.
“This seems somewhat different from what I’ve heard. My friend told me that grassland people enjoy murder and rape as casually as eating meals, making them essentially a different species wearing human disguises.”
“There are certainly such individuals, but there are many villains among the northern continent dwellers as well. The people here simply haven’t been taught how to live properly. Among them, those like the tribe we just left, who possess fertile land and abundant resources, display virtues such as treating even unknown vagrants with kindness.”
A strange melancholy permeated his quiet voice.
As they continued discussing this topic, Turan learned a fascinating fact: the small tribe he had initially saved was actually one of the marauding groups.
They had recently attempted to raid the tribe they had just left, but were beaten back by Mago’s intervention.
“Hmm…”
Turan recalled the subservient people bowing before him earlier.
Those seemingly powerless sheep had been acting like ferocious wolves toward other sheep?
“Perhaps I should deal with them when time permits.”
“Are you referring to those people?”
“Yes. If they raid someone else, it would be my responsibility.”
Hadn’t Keorn once said that showing mercy to a single highway robber would result in the deaths of ten innocent people, so one should kill them without hesitation when the opportunity arose?
Moreover, considering how they had seemed pleased upon noticing Turan’s poor health and deliberately recommended a hostile tribe, their intentions could hardly be considered benevolent.
They likely hoped for conflict with the foreigner, given the generally hostile atmosphere toward outsiders.
Hearing this, Mago responded with a somewhat flustered expression:
“Surely there’s no need for you to go to such trouble.”
“It wouldn’t be troublesome at all.”
“Indeed, I suppose not.”
Mago had no doubt that the young noble before him could easily crush a small tribe with a mere gesture.
The aftershock of that tremendous magical power he had felt earlier still made his body tremble.
For lower-ranking nobles like him, this was a force that would be difficult to even look in the eye, something typically felt only from the elders of his family.
By his estimation, thousands of nobles as weak as Mago would struggle to inflict even a scratch on Turan’s body.
He should be grateful that Turan was even addressing him with honorifics, acknowledging him as a fellow noble.
“What I wish to express is that there’s no need for you to add such evil deeds to your hands.”
“Is it really an evil deed to remove wolves that prey on sheep?”
Those who harm innocent humans are not sheep but wolves.
Confronted with Turan’s stone-hard values, Mago responded in a calm tone:
“As I mentioned earlier, whether the tribes in this land are good or evil depends merely on whether they have food to fill their bellies, whether they can survive without raiding. When hungry, they become wolves; when full, they become sheep.”
He continued explaining that killing those who had become wolves out of hunger would only allow the sheep to multiply, then food would become scarce and some would become wolves again, perpetuating the cycle.
Turan listened attentively to Mago’s words.
Though they directly contradicted the values he had built throughout his life, there was a strange resonance to them that prevented him from dismissing them as mere nonsense.
“…So what I’m trying to say is that good and evil are more complex and difficult to distinguish than one might think. Of course, if someone is simply devoted to causing pain, they can be eliminated as you suggest, but making such judgments is not easy, which is why one should exercise greater caution when wielding power.”
After finishing his speech, Mago cautiously examined Turan’s reaction, seemingly concerned about having offended him.
In response, Turan nodded with a gentle smile.
“It’s still difficult for me to fully comprehend… but I sense something meaningful in your words. Thank you for sharing your perspective.”
“I hope I haven’t overstepped my bounds.”
“Not at all. Ah, by the way, my name is Turan.”
He revealed his previously concealed real name because he felt that the middle-aged man before him was worthy of respect.
Not only was he a shepherd who treasured his sheep, but his discourse on the need to investigate the reasons behind raiders’ actions rather than simply cutting them down like weeds contained a profundity Turan had never considered.
Of course, there were still aspects with which he couldn’t fully agree.
Perhaps sensing the friendly sentiment in Turan’s words, a faint smile appeared on Mago’s previously tense face.
“So you are Lord Turan. I don’t believe you belong to Ravitas…”
“I have Zahar lineage. Though I’m not affiliated with that family.”
“Ah.”
Sensing some complex family circumstances, Mago chose not to inquire further, adopting a respectful attitude instead.
Turan then asked something that had been on his mind:
“But leaving your family to settle here cannot be as simple as you make it sound. More than anything, I doubt Ravitas would ever permit it.”
Even ordinary mage families were reluctant to release their nobles given their rarity, but great families were especially harsh in this regard… This was to prevent the theft of their precious bloodlines, which were superior and rarer due to the mixture of two lineages.
Bluntly speaking, if Mago remained here and was kidnapped by another great family who forced him to produce children, thus generating mages with Ravitas bloodlines, what then?
While such bloodline theft was strictly prohibited, the very existence of prohibitions typically indicated that people attempted such actions.
When Turan voiced this concern, Mago laughed and replied:
“Since you’re close enough to the family to be entrusted with retrieving the Holy Relic, I can share this with you. It’s common knowledge among those in the know… Among Ravitas’s Holy Relics, there is one that can block a person’s reproductive abilities. Once used, one cannot conceive children no matter what methods are employed, until the effect is reversed.”
Turan’s eyes widened at this extraordinarily curious information.
“Such a thing exists?”
“Yes. Though I’ve never used it myself, I understand it’s available to anyone who desires it.”
Mago added the somewhat mischievous clarification that this didn’t necessarily render one incapable of reproductive activities.
* * *
Since Turan had already revealed his name, there was no need to hide Bije any longer. When they reached a place out of sight from others, Turan released Bije and enlarged her.
Mago’s eyes widened in astonishment at the sight of the giant eagle hawk magical beast.
“This is truly… to hide a magical beast within your body and even change its size, this is something I’ve never seen in my entire life.”
“Please don’t mention this to anyone.”
Turan’s warning was met with a solemn nod from Mago.
Of course, in reality, this wasn’t such a closely guarded secret anymore, as all the Berk family members who had come to Kalamaf had seen it and spread the word.
The grasslands, while not as vast as the Enril Desert, were still immensely wide. They flew eastward for nearly a full day before reaching their destination.
It was a region where a sizeable river flowed and the grass grew noticeably tall—a rare sight in these arid grasslands.
Looking around, Mago groaned softly and said:
“This is the base of the Golden Fleece tribe. Currently, several other tribes have also gathered here…”
The claim that they were essentially at war proved to be no exaggeration, as they soon encountered corpses that had clearly been killed by humans.
The attackers had apparently been desperate for clothing, as all the bodies were completely naked, with even spears, knives, and arrows removed from the wounds.
“Tsk.”
Though Turan had gained new perspectives from Mago’s story earlier, such sights remained deeply unpleasant, even taking those considerations into account.
Understanding this discomfort, Mago made no attempt to defend the scene.
As Turan examined the bodies briefly, he noted something curious.
“These corpses were mostly killed by ordinary people, not mages.”
The wounds from spears, knives, and arrows were all uniformly shallow, unlike what one would expect from attacks by knights or nobles.
According to what he had heard previously, only tribes with shamans (mages) should have been able to enter this area.
“Yes. Among their ancient traditions, there is one where shamans from different tribes compete against each other, while those without such abilities fight amongst themselves. In such situations, it’s considered dishonorable for a shaman to harm ordinary people.”
So even here, they had their own concept of honor.
Though Turan found it difficult to empathize with their methods.
When he had first arrived, Turan had viewed the grassland people as merely a different species capable of reproduction. Now, he had come to see them as people with different cultures.
Though he had felt he knew everything after traveling the world, there were clearly many things one couldn’t learn without directly meeting and interacting with different peoples.
After briefly surveying the surroundings, Turan mentally dominated a stray horse and gave it to Mago.
Then, with a bow of his head, he exchanged farewells.
“Please return safely.”
“Yes, and I pray to the Earth Mother that you too may successfully complete your mission, Lord Turan.”
Mago’s role extended only this far.
Having already been severely injured while trying to infiltrate this area, he had no more information to offer. Moreover, Turan would need to inconvenience himself to protect Mago if he stayed.
Recognizing this, Mago didn’t insist on helping with the mission and agreed to return.
Traveling by horse would take at least a week to cover the distance they had flown in a day, but with the food and water Turan had prepared, surviving wouldn’t be difficult.
After sending Mago off, Turan mounted the mentally dominated horse and immediately employed tracking magic targeting humans.
Strong bodily scents wafted from all directions.
He took to the air with the invisible Bije and began observing each tribe gathered in the area.
“There really are so many…”
He had heard that the entire population of these vast grasslands barely reached a few hundred thousand, yet every ten kilometers or so, he encountered tribes numbering in the thousands.
Considering the amount of grass required to feed their sheep and cattle, it seemed remarkable that even this relatively fertile region hadn’t been completely depleted.
As Turan passed by, he examined the flags mounted atop tents whenever he encountered notable tribes.
‘Horned buffalo, wolf, snake, lion…’
Unlike the regions outside the grasslands where Freya worship was predominant, here both commoners and mages primarily followed primitive religions based on animal worship.
Some even venerated specific magical beasts.
A tribe they had passed earlier had a symbol resembling an eagle hawk on their flag, suggesting they might even worship Bije as a divine bird if they saw her.
After passing more than ten tribes, they finally spotted flags embroidered with the golden fleece symbol.
-Found it!
Bije, with her superior eyesight, spotted it before Turan.
She seemed to treat finding the correct flag as a game, displaying even more enthusiasm than Turan himself.
The Golden Fleece tribe numbered at least 10,000 people.
They were the largest among the gathered tribes, comparable to an entire city on the move.
Maintaining his invisibility, Turan landed among the tents of the Golden Fleece tribe.
The strong scent of animals mixed with human smells momentarily dizzied him, but he soon grew accustomed to it.
With his Holy Relic’s perception active, it didn’t take long to sense the presence of nobles with upper-rank magical power.
Their number was an impressive eleven.
‘Strange, I thought the grasslands had few mages… This is more than you’d find after scraping together all the mage families in the gray zone.’
If a single tribe had this many, perhaps when all tribes united, they might even be able to challenge Baraha?
Such thoughts were quickly dispelled when Turan approached the gathering of upper-rank nobles and realized his misunderstanding.
The unusually large number of high-ranking nobles were actually the leaders of other tribes opposing the Golden Fleece tribe.
A meeting was being held to mediate conflicts between the Golden Fleece and neighboring tribes, which had drawn these powerful nobles together.
“This is outrageous! That bastard slaughtered our entire tribe, even the children! And the compensation is just one hundred fifty sheep!?”
“They were just ordinary children, not shamans. I think that’s already quite generous.”
The casual dismissal from someone presumably of the Golden Fleece tribe caused the person who had been crying about the slaughtered children to tremble in rage.
After briefly focusing on their conversation, Turan turned his attention back to his target.
Unlike the others attending the meeting, the man was embracing his lover, seemingly unconcerned with the proceedings as an outsider.
‘Moroz Ravitas… Judging by his face and bloodline, it’s definitely him.’
Moroz had a somewhat neurotic and sensitive appearance.
Of course, being of Ravitas bloodline, he merely looked young despite being over two hundred and forty years old.
The female knight in his arms had a pretty face, befitting someone with a powerful noble lover, and the necklace hanging on her chest emanated immense power.
That must be the Holy Relic.
When the meeting adjourned shortly after, Moroz entered what appeared to be a large tent assigned to him.
Naturally, Turan followed behind while invisible, appearing as if he were part of their entourage.
“These country bumpkins, I don’t understand why they call me for such trivial matters. It’s already troublesome enough dealing with all their healing requests.”
“Such is the burden of someone in a high position.”
The female knight responded to Moroz’s irritable attitude with a tone both formal and gentle, skillfully flattering him.
After a brief exchange of kisses, he spoke in a more relaxed manner:
“Well, being stuck in such a rural place, it can’t be helped… But I only need you, Basha.”
“Lord Moroz.”
Observing their affectionate behavior, it would be difficult to imagine that they were criminals who had stolen their family’s Holy Relic, and had even murdered the family’s pursuers.
Then again, hadn’t Turan just learned yesterday that evil people don’t always appear evil?
Naturally, after the sweet declarations of love came more intense displays of affection.
Watching from beside the bed in the tent, Turan drew the sword at his side.
It was a magical device that Melo, the heir of the Berk family, had made as a token of gratitude for his rescue during Turan’s stay in Kalamaf.
Though not as fine as what Meisa could create, its quality was nonetheless impressive since Melo, unlike Meisa, could dedicate his full energy to its creation rather than constantly preparing for combat.
The assassination blade, specialized in penetrating all manner of defensive abilities, pierced through the intertwined bodies of the two lovers.