Shepherd Wizard (Novel) - Chapter 143
Chapter 143
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Discord
The emergence of the new Parsha family naturally became known to all the surrounding families.
This was because while spies with knight or noble-level magical power who had triggered Turan’s senses were either killed or expelled, a few fortunate ones had managed to evade his surveillance network.
These individuals had used various means, from sending messengers to riding magical beasts, to spread this information to the surrounding areas.
Thanks to this, soon after they had named and announced themselves, congratulatory messages arrived from nearby families—even before they had sent envoys to those regions.
During a break time, when the three of them gathered after quite a while, Meisa tossed down a letter and lamented:
“We definitely need some way to gather information too. Like this, it’s practically the same as being blindfolded…”
Of course, having Turan personally move around on Bije to gather intelligence would be the quickest and simplest method, but this was merely an improvised solution.
A great family’s head couldn’t afford to move about so casually—it would undermine the faith of their vassals, and moreover, it would make it difficult to respond to attacks like the recent one.
Although his recent outing had been absolutely necessary and had yielded significant benefits, such excursions needed to be minimized in the future.
Naturally, the Parsha family wasn’t simply sitting idle on this matter.
Whenever he had free time, Turan attempted to capture relatively docile magical beasts around Kalamaf, taming them with his Beast Handler bloodline power to create mounts. Meanwhile, Meisa was working to simplify the communication magical devices she had previously created, and Solif was designing a signal fire system around Kalamaf similar to what the Baraha family boasted.
“At least the signal fires seem to be working well. The main problem was the shortage of knights to man them, but we’ve increased their numbers significantly lately.”
“That’s fortunate.”
Turan nodded at Solif’s words.
Of course, given their relative lack of nobles with the Illusion bloodline, they couldn’t match Baraha’s speed and reliability, but for a relatively small area, adopting their methods made sense.
“Well, I think that’s enough about family business… how’s your personal training going, you two?”
“I can use about seven different ones now. The number of times varies for each.”
As Meisa answered, she immediately created a yellow-green wind blade in her hand.
God’s magic, what they called “skills.”
Since finally succeeding in combining symbols during the recent battle with Badal, Meisa had been steadily practicing to increase both the number of skills she could use and how many times she could cast them.
Unfortunately, unlike Turan, she couldn’t freely pull the various handles in her mind, and even the handles she could pull would cause severe headaches after multiple uses, regardless of magical power depletion.
Though not entirely certain, it seemed some kind of mental resource was being exhausted.
However, Meisa possessed an ability that Turan lacked.
She picked up a quill pen from the table and concentrated; after a moment, blue lightning crackled from the pen.
“A lightning quill?”
“I managed to create it recently. It seems to be a technique that simply imbues nearby objects with lightning properties.”
Turan examined Meisa’s inner self through his Mimic Holy Relic.
He could see the image of a hammer striking an anvil, creating lightning and storms with each blow.
“You’ve combined three symbols?”
“Yes. But it feels somewhat unnatural and awkward.”
“That’s probably because you lack the power of History.”
In Badal’s inner self that he had observed both previously and recently, a thick, strong hand had gripped the hammer as it struck the anvil.
Perhaps because Meisa lacked this hand, the hammer striking the anvil seemed to lack power.
“Will this help with enchantment magic?”
“Tremendously. I’ve been applying this technique to all the magical devices I’m creating lately, and it definitely improves their performance. Of course, lightning magic doesn’t work particularly well against Arabion nobles… but it will still affect their vassals.”
Meisa’s most crucial role in the family was creating combat magical devices to enhance their battle capabilities.
Being a primary combatant herself, she couldn’t dedicate herself entirely to creating powerful magical devices like Melo or Asiz, but thanks to her immense power, even her moderate efforts produced items that were useful to ordinary nobles.
As a result, the nobles and knights of the current Parsha family possessed quite abundant magical devices, allowing them to demonstrate capabilities beyond their actual combat power.
In the absence of a great family with the Enchanter bloodline, there was no enchanter more powerful than Meisa.
As the two discussed enchantment magic for a while, Solif, who had been concentrating with his eyes closed, sighed deeply and said:
“Damn, I really can’t get a feel for this at all. I have the sense that if I just knew the method, something would happen.”
Unlike Meisa, who knew how to combine the Storm bloodline, Solif had still not succeeded in combining the Sun bloodline.
Considering that his aptitude for soul magic wasn’t significantly inferior to Meisa’s, as he had just said, it was probably a matter of knowing the method.
Even Turan found it difficult to offer advice on this matter.
After all, the Baraha elder he had fought in the past hadn’t used the Sun bloodline but had unexpectedly combined the History and Guardian bloodlines.
“I wish we could just grab one of those gods and ask them. Your grandfather wouldn’t tell us, would he?”
“Of course not. He’d absolutely refuse to tell us. And even if he did, it wouldn’t be wise to blindly follow his instructions.”
Although the Zahar family was currently being strangely amicable toward Turan and the Parsha family, they couldn’t afford to let their guard down.
After all, Turan himself possessed a body that the Zahar gods would salivate over.
The current seemingly cordial relationship, with them even sending a hostage-cum-spy, was likely primarily because Turan was openly hostile to Arabion.
Beyond the fact that the past war had been a kind of theater, the two families were likely competitors in the world of gods as well.
After all, the downfall of a competitor typically brings one’s own happiness, doesn’t it?
“We’ll probably have to fight Zahar after bringing down Arabion. Or maybe even before that.”
This was also why Parsha was currently sharpening its blade against Arabion but not actively attacking.
Their position in the gray zone bordered both families, allowing them to attack in either direction, but also making them vulnerable to invasion from either side.
After briefly discussing these complex political matters, they returned to their original topic of soul training.
Turan instructed the two to extract their soul forms from their bodies… After a short while, as Meisa and Solif’s soul forms emerged from their bodies and floated in the air, Turan likewise pulled out his own soul form and stood before them.
Then he reached for the needles densely embedded in their heads and gently pulled.
“Ugh!”
“Aargh!”
The half-moaning, half-screaming voices of the two fortunately didn’t spread to the real world as they were spiritual in nature.
After a while, when Solif begged him to stop, Turan released his grip and checked their progress.
“Today I managed to remove about four and a half.”
“My head is throbbing…”
“Are we sure this is really helping?”
“I’m not completely certain, but I don’t think removing these will cause any harm.”
The intuition of one deeply versed in soul magic was more than just a mere hunch.
Like prophets who predict weather and future by observing clouds and stars, advanced soul magicians develop a kind of supernatural foresight.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that Turan, who had only learned soul magic from an introductory book, had reached such a level, but lately he had developed an almost certain strong intuition about this particular matter.
Without it, he wouldn’t have risked removing the needles.
“More than anything, it’s frustrating that we don’t have a way to further train our soul magic here. It would be great if we could interrogate Kadram.”
“Still no news from him?”
“None at all. It seems I haven’t even checked on him these past few weeks. I’ve been busy.”
From persistent torture to verbal persuasion.
Turan, who had once diligently tried to extract even a single word from Kadram’s soul form, had lately been almost neglecting him.
He had grown tired of pounding what was essentially a wall, especially with so many other tasks demanding his attention.
While they were discussing whether they should simply crush Kadram’s soul given the lack of progress, the voices of all three suddenly fell silent.
Shortly after, someone knocked on the door of the lounge where they were resting.
“Enter.”
With Turan’s command, the door opened to reveal a knight who had formerly belonged to the Berk family but was now directly incorporated into the Parsha family.
With a somewhat tense expression, he reported to Turan:
“Report from the south. Multiple mages, friendly, 150km distance.”
“Signal fires?”
“Yes.”
“It seems they’ve almost arrived. I trust the banquet preparations are complete?”
“Yes!”
“Then let’s wrap up here and prepare ourselves.”
“Let’s do that.”
Having heard the knight’s report, Turan rose from his seat.
It was time to work as the head of Parsha.
* * *
“May endless glory shine upon this new great family, Turan Parsha. And may we become your eternal allies.”
“I gratefully accept your most generous blessing. Lady.”
In the garden in front of the mansion in Kalamaf.
A massive outdoor banquet hall had been set up where well-manicured garden trees and lawns had once stood.
At its center, Rida Ravitas exchanged formal greetings with Turan, as if meeting him for the first time.
Normally, as a young man hundreds of years her junior, Turan would address Rida with honorifics, but that was impossible in this setting.
If he, as the family head, showed deference to a mere noble, even if she was the family head’s wet nurse, it would make the Parsha family appear subordinate to Ravitas.
At least, given that Rida’s magical power was high relative to her status, and considering her extremely advanced age, it would have been equally inappropriate to address her too casually, so the current tone was appropriate.
As the two representatives exchanged greetings, the Ravitas nobles who had entered the banquet hall quietly expressed their admiration as they looked around.
“This is more impressive than I expected.”
“I wasn’t expecting much, but…”
Although Parsha had reportedly repelled Arabion once, that had been achieved primarily through the individual prowess of powerful nobles like Turan.
Everyone knew that the current Parsha family was essentially a hastily assembled group, far from what could be properly called a great family in terms of scale and substance.
However, the Kalamaf they found exceeded their expectations.
Though the interior seemed somewhat sparse, the vast and majestic walls, along with an equally imposing mansion, were certainly worthy of approval considering this was a newly established great family.
Of course, Turan had naturally been involved in this.
Although he had recently lost the Earth Guardian bloodline, his accumulated skill hadn’t disappeared, allowing him to complete various construction projects in a short time using earth manipulation magic.
Meisa and Solif, also accustomed to such labor, had been of great help.
Some might view this as mere visible pomp and circumstance, but such visible elements were indeed important.
Since humans are ultimately creatures governed by emotions, regardless of an opponent’s actual capabilities, what one sees and feels instinctively causes either intimidation or dismissal.
Shortly after, Turan sat opposite Rida at the high table and, unlike earlier, spoke in a respectful tone:
“Thank you for coming, Rida.”
“Not at all. The family head asked me to convey his apologies for not being able to come in person. More importantly, I heard there was some unfortunate incident recently—are you alright?”
“Ah…”
The unfortunate incident she referred to was undoubtedly the death of the Berk couple.
Turan smiled bitterly and took a light sip of the drink placed before him.
“It’s a painful wound, but everyone is trying to accept it and move forward.”
“All I can say is to stay strong. As someone who has lost many beloved people, I know that words offer little comfort.”
Turan responded with a gentle smile to Rida’s words, which carried the profound insight of an elder.
After all, it wouldn’t be appropriate for someone of his stature as a family head to openly display emotions.
Suddenly, he realized that rising in status was constraining him in yet another way.
One shackle formed when he established a base and couldn’t leave for fear of enemy attacks, and another formed as he had to restrain inappropriate speech and behavior…
His contemplation was interrupted by a female voice from beside him.
“Family Head, if I may, could you introduce me to this lady?”
Berit Zahar.
His fifth cousin pretended to be innocent as she looked at Turan with wide eyes.
In response, Rida laughed heartily and said:
“In our Ravitas, it’s not considered rude to converse without an introduction when meeting for the first time.”
“I see! I’m Berit Zahar.”
“Rida Ravitas. Zahar, may I ask what your relationship is with your family head?”
“He’s my grandfather.”
“Then you would be fifth cousins with the Parsha family head here.”… Just as with Meisa in the past, Berit’s face showed slight displeasure when her familial relationship with Turan was emphasized.
However, being much more skilled at controlling her emotions, this expression appeared only briefly before vanishing.
After exchanging a few more words with Rida, Berit seemed to sense that the older woman wasn’t particularly fond of conversing with her, so she smiled politely and departed.
The elderly woman, who had sent her off with an equally gentle smile, looked at Turan with somewhat narrowed eyes.
“I’d heard about it, but you really did bring in a young lady from Zahar, Turan.”
“It turned out that way. It was a condition they imposed.”
“Didn’t Meisa get angry?”
“I was beaten until my nose broke before receiving forgiveness.”
Rida burst into laughter at Turan’s words, slapping her knee.
Her occasional elderly mannerisms seemed oddly incongruous with her youthful appearance.
“I suspect it didn’t end with just a broken nose. It seems Meisa is wearing something familiar around her neck.”
Saying this, Rida pointed toward Meisa, who was mingling with her relatives Melo and Asiz.
She had recognized the necklace around Meisa’s neck as the Ravitas Holy Relic, “Modest Wish.”
“It’s not exactly that she forgave me because she received that.”
“If I weren’t a Ravitas noble and received that, I wouldn’t be able to sleep from joy. Men desire youth too, but how could it compare to a woman’s longing for it? Though I suppose it would be a great gift for you as well.”
Not long after confessing his love, Turan had gifted the Modest Wish to Meisa.
While Rida was right that he wanted his lover to remain eternally young, it was also because it wasn’t particularly useful for Turan himself.
After all, he could enjoy the same blessing of agelessness as they did when his Mimic Holy Relic was set to the Ravitas bloodline.
“Young people’s romance is certainly an interesting topic… but there’s something I’d like to confirm.”
“What would that be?”
“There seem to be too many listening ears here.”
At Rida’s words, Turan immediately used wind magic to block the flow of air around the two of them.
Sensing this, Rida exclaimed in admiration:
“Impressive.”
“You may speak now.”
“How closely do you intend to align yourself with Zahar?”
“I view them as potential enemies.”
“I see.”
As if she had anticipated Turan’s answer, Rida nodded without surprise.
“Well, if you had intended to properly ally with them, you wouldn’t have left that young lady out in the cold like this. The family head specifically asked me to ascertain this point.”
For Osel, it was crucial to know whether Turan intended to form a close alliance with Zahar or not.
After all, Baraha, known to be friendly with Zahar, had now become an irreconcilable enemy of Ravitas.
At that moment, Rida slightly lowered her head and whispered in a low voice.
Even though she knew that he had already blocked the flow of air around them, this gesture emphasized just how important and secretive this conversation was meant to be.
“Then I should tell you why I asked that question earlier.”
Just hearing this, Turan could guess what she would say next.
“An invasion?”
“You are indeed wise. Yes. As soon as this delegation returns, we plan to invade Baraha.”
The young elderly woman announced the coming war with a gentle face.