Shepherd Wizard (Novel) - Chapter 141
Chapter 141
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“Turan! Dad, no, Father, Mom, because of me…”
Heading toward the sound of the wailing, Turan saw Asiz, his face a mess of tears and mucus.
Beneath him lay the mangled corpses of the Berk couple.
Turan gritted his teeth at the final sight of these two people who had once welcomed him as their son’s benefactor and guest.
“I’m an idiot. Damn it, if only I hadn’t been so reckless.”
“Father and Mother fought like true nobles until the end. Don’t cry! That would only dishonor them.”
The one who sharply rebuked Asiz as he rambled and blamed himself was his brother, Melo.
Judging by his torn and bloodied clothes, he too had been severely injured before receiving treatment.
Looking around, Turan could roughly guess what had happened.
Knights who, though wounded here and there, remained relatively numerous, and in contrast, the Berk family nobles who had suffered serious injuries or even death…
‘They fought at the front to protect their knights.’
There were primarily two reasons nobles raised knights.
First, to use them as their hands and feet to subjugate magical beasts in their territory and maintain order, and second, to use them as shields to absorb enemy attacks during war.
But the Berk nobles had instead led from the front to protect these knights, losing their lives in the process.
Even with their Enchanter bloodline that wasn’t suited for combat.
Turan suddenly recalled the nobles of the Baltas family from Orem City in the west, who had joined him on a magical beast hunt long ago.
Had the Berk nobles naturally used their knights as shields in battle as they had, what would have happened?
Perhaps the knights would have suffered greater losses, but the nobles would have survived.
Considering the intangible value of Enchanters, from the perspective of maintaining the faction’s power, that would have been the right choice.
But paradoxically, the reason Turan had come to like the Berk family members in the first place was because they weren’t the type of people who would do such things.
After all, it was this couple who had taught Asiz that the retainers who followed him were also precious people.
“What happened?”
At that moment, Meisa, her face pale perhaps from the side effects of soul magic, flew over.
Not long after, her face hardened as she saw the corpses of the Berk couple lying on the ground.
“Aunt and Uncle…”
“I’m sorry.”
To her, and to Asiz who was still crying, Turan apologized in a low voice.
An emotion difficult to express was boiling within him.
For Turan, this was his first experience of losing “someone he was supposed to protect.”
It felt completely different from when he had lost his mother in the past.
Not the loss of someone who had protected him, but the guilt and anger of failing to protect someone he should have guarded…
He felt ashamed of the pride he had felt just earlier about being able to fight relatively well against the Arabion family head.
‘What a fool.’
How could he have felt so pleased with himself when he couldn’t even protect his own people?
Perhaps because Turan’s face looked excessively dark as he blamed himself, Asiz, who had been sobbing, forced a smile and comforted him.
“I’m sorry, don’t… you too, did your best.”
After comforting Asiz a few more times, Turan instructed the knights standing nearby to take care of the family head couple’s bodies and went to look for other wounded.
Before long, he found someone who needed his help.
“Master.”
“I’m a mess. I’m so ashamed.”
Haram Berk.
The retainer of the Berk family and Asiz’s uncle by marriage looked absolutely terrible.
Burns covering the left half of his body, a right arm that had been crushed and was in the process of healing, and traces of blood vessels bursting throughout his body from lightning strikes.
No one could claim he hadn’t fought hard after seeing this appearance.
“Please don’t say such things. I can tell how much you’ve suffered.”
Haram was a Guardian with power ranking among the upper tier of nobles.
Anyone who could reduce him to this state would have to be a noble of at least equal power.
Given that the traces of damage were visibly from at least three different sources, this meant Haram had single-handedly engaged three or more upper-rank nobles.
Without his efforts, the Kalamaf forces would likely have been annihilated long ago.
Glancing around, Turan saw that the Ravitas healers were busy treating others.
As a high-ranking noble with the durable Guardian bloodline, Haram would require a lot of magical power to treat, and since his condition wasn’t immediately critical, he had been pushed down the treatment priority list.
So Turan immediately placed his hands on Haram’s body and cast healing magic.
A moment later, with his wounds completely healed, Haram stood up and said:
“In this battle, I saw many unfamiliar faces.”
“Unfamiliar faces?”
“I know the faces of almost all Arabion nobles and their vassal families from my generation, but this time most of them were strangers. Among them, the Arabion nobles were either too old or too young.”
As he pondered Haram’s words, Turan soon understood what they meant.
“It seems they’re running short of resources too.”
“That’s how it appears.”
From when Meisa escaped until the recent battle in the forest…
The number of Arabion nobles Turan and his companions had killed had now exceeded twenty.
Wasn’t that about how many casualties they had suffered during the war with Zahar in the past?
Additionally, they had also suffered losses during the dark elf subjugation, so no matter how ancient and established Arabion was as a great family, they were starting to feel the strain.
To the point where they had to mobilize retired or young nobles, or even reinforcements brought from the Nagin family.
“So take heart, Family Head. The enemy is also exhausted. This is not a fight we cannot win.”
Haram encouraged Turan, addressing him formally as “Family Head,” unlike his more casual tone just moments ago.
Turan silently repeated the title Haram had used.
Family Head…
Though still too heavy a title to accept, this too was a burden he had to bear as the leader of a group.
“Thank you for your advice, Master.”
Haram gestured for him to go on his way and turned his head.
* * *
As it was getting dark, they first set up a camp near the battle site.
Meanwhile, Turan sent Bije, who had recovered after resting for a few hours, to confirm whether the Arabion army was really retreating.
About an hour later…
Bije returned and eagerly gulped down the prepared water before sharing what she had seen.
-Found them! People riding in carriages pulled by a giant snake! They’re continuing to move westward!
Fortunately, the Arabion army wasn’t just feigning retreat but actually returning to their base.
Reassured by this, they stayed for one night, and then the Kalamaf forces began moving to return to their base.
Due to the escape and battle over the past two days, everyone was extremely tired, making their pace painfully slow.
During the march, Turan used tracking magic to monitor the surroundings from the center of the group while conversing with his companions.
“How is Asiz doing?”
“He seems to have calmed down a bit now. Though it will take more time for him to accept it…”
Meisa’s face was dark as she answered the question.
Suddenly, Turan noticed that Solif, who was listening beside them, had a faint trace of guilt on his face.
‘It must be because of his parents.’
Around the time they had established Kalamaf as their base…
There had been a suggestion to bring Solif’s parents from their hiding place near Hisaril Hill.
Originally, when they had hidden them, they had planned to keep moving without a base, but now that the situation had changed, it seemed better for them to stay together.
Surprisingly, Solif had opposed this.
He argued that his parents would prefer the quiet life of just the two of them in a remote location rather than the busy city life.
As a result, the Baraha couple remained safe by not staying in Kalamaf, but the main force in Kalamaf suffered greater losses due to the weakened forces.
It was natural for Solif to feel complicated emotions about this.
“By the way, why did that damned old man spare us? I heard you fought quite well… but honestly, if the fight had continued, we probably would have lost.”
Solif changed the uncomfortable topic while rubbing his chest that had once been caved in.
Turan shared his hypothesis with him.
“I’m not sure, but I think he couldn’t maintain that combat power for long.”
“Couldn’t maintain it for long?”
“Yes. He looked quite tired toward the end. To an unusual degree, beyond what would be expected just from age.”
The way his spirit form seemed to be squeezing his body, as seen through spiritual vision, had definitely given the impression of strain.
As Ymir had demonstrated in the past, excessive use of power through a vessel body could cause it to completely collapse.
Therefore, Turan thought that Badal, operating under a time limit, had chosen to retreat with his army intact rather than risk his own collapse by continuing to fight.
“I see.”
“I think that might also be why he didn’t use god’s magic… what they called ‘skill.'”
As Turan said this, he recalled the bizarre flight magic Badal had been using.
Was that also a ‘skill,’ or was it just a type of magic that Turan didn’t understand?
It couldn’t have been telekinetic magic moving metal, as that wouldn’t make sense.
Ordinary telekinetic magic couldn’t produce that kind of output and dynamism, and if it could, it would be easier to just move the body directly.
“Well, if that’s the case, we should try to drag out the time in our next fight too. Though it won’t be easy.”
“That’s right. It was really difficult. We barely held out for about two hours…”
Meisa muttered with a sigh.
Last night, while resting, Turan had heard roughly how the battle had unfolded.
It had begun when Meisa, who regularly scouted the west and north, first discovered the Arabion main force.
After eliminating the scouts pursuing her, she contacted Turan and began the full evacuation from the city.
What followed for about two days was a chase between the fleeing Kalamaf forces and the pursuing Arabion army.
Finally, they were caught, and a fierce battle erupted for several hours, at which point Turan arrived with the Ravitas mages.
Looking back, it had been an extremely close call.
What if Turan had been a little late, or had come alone without reinforcements?
By now, everyone else would probably be dead, and Meisa would be captured and dragged to Arabion to become a new body for a god.
Dispelling this terrible thought that suddenly came to mind, Turan mentioned another piece of information he had heard to his companions.
“By the way, there was something Badal said at the end.”
“What was it?”
“He grumbled about having to expend effort on such trivial matters during this crucial period. As if someone had ordered him to do it.”
“Based on everything we’ve heard so far, there shouldn’t be anything more important than taking Meisa’s body.”
Solif muttered, unable to understand.
Indeed, there was no need to doubt that Badal’s lifespan was running out.
Meisa, who would become his replacement, was certainly a vital resource for them.
What could possibly be more important than that, to the point of postponing even such a matter?
“At least… my father isn’t the leader of that faction, right?”
“If what Ymir said wasn’t a lie, then the leader of the Arabion-Nagin faction is that one we shouldn’t mention. Probably the Nagin family head.”
The Biologist.
A being whose traces Turan had first encountered in the labyrinth and whose identity he had come to guess through the materials left in the library.
The one who seemed to treat humans like toys while arbitrarily manipulating dwarves—it was unlikely that Badal was this entity.
Based on what they had seen so far, Badal’s bloodlines were Storm, Enchanter, and History, quite far from the power to manipulate life.
Listening to this, Solif stroked his chin and said quietly:
“Now that I think about it, I’ve felt that Arabion’s response has been rather lukewarm all along. Perhaps this boss is quite preoccupied with something else.”
Indeed, Arabion seemed surprisingly uncommitted for having lost Meisa, the vessel for the family head’s incarnation.
Even in this latest incident, wouldn’t it have made sense for the ‘Biologist’ himself to appear?
If he had, the worst-case scenario Turan had imagined earlier might have become reality.
Discussing what scheme they might be plotting, Turan’s group continued steadily moving northeast.
And after three days and nights had passed, Solif whistled cheerfully and said:
“We’re finally back.”
Indeed, in the distance, Kalamaf City came into view.
* * *
After returning to Kalamaf, Turan first used the Berk family retainers to spread the results of the battle throughout the city.
The story that they had clashed with Arabion, and despite the participation of their family head himself, they had repelled them.
At first glance, having returned looking almost like defeated troops, this story didn’t immediately spread with confidence.
Above all, wasn’t the Arabion family head one of the most powerful mages in the world? Despite Turan of Kalamaf’s reputation for having strong power at a young age, no one believed he had risen to the same level as those august great family heads.
However, a week later, something unexpectedly gave momentum to these ambiguous rumors.
“Is that really true?”
“I’m telling you! It truly looked like the aftermath of a battle between gods. You should see it yourself if you ever go that way.”
A merchant who had come from Bexel, a city southwest of Kalamaf, excitedly talked while drinking beer.
Mountains that had sunk as if struck by a giant’s hammer, hills with holes large enough for a house to pass through, and fields where hundreds of meters of grass had been completely burned away.
As stories from people who had directly seen the traces of the clash between Kalamaf and Arabion spread, citizens couldn’t help but recall the story they had heard recently.
“Did they really… repel the Arabion family head?”
“This might mean a new great family is rising from our land.”
While some felt dissatisfaction and fear at the fact that they were hostile to the great family Arabion, even more people harbored expectations in their hearts.
For the small city of Kalamaf, just one of many trading cities scattered throughout the gray zone without even an impressive history, to become the capital of a great family?
As a resident living there, it was a story that made one’s heart swell just imagining it.
As these rumors spread to the surrounding areas, naturally the mage family heads of the gray zone couldn’t help but be stirred.
With their knowledge of the magical world, they had considered the idea that Turan had reached the same level as the Arabion family head to be nonsense not worth considering, but after confirming the battle area personally, they could no longer think so.
The traces left at that place were so mythical that they could tell that practitioners equivalent to the family heads of great families had clashed.
It goes without saying that they bowed their heads before Turan’s messengers who visited afterward, and promised to offer some of their family’s nobles and knights.
After a few weeks of Kalamaf continuing to integrate the gray zone as the capital of a new great family…
Finally, visitors arrived from the Enril Desert in the east.