Shepherd Wizard (Novel) - Chapter 158
Chapter 158
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Discord
In a dimly lit room, Turan leaned back in a cushioned chair, gazing at a brightly glowing screen.
The object, framed in black, measured about four hand-widths across and just under two hand-widths in height. It bore a striking resemblance to one of the ancient relics he had seen on the surface level of the Tomb of the Gods long ago.
Remarkably, within that small glowing light, an entirely different world was contained.
A world where people from all corners of existence gathered in one place, communicating through text and voice, battling enemies, and forging bonds with comrades.
In that world, Turan sometimes became a single individual, traversing various underground labyrinths and hunting grounds. At other times, he would light a bonfire in a plaza and interact with others.
Unlike other popular games, this one seemed to be a half-failed title, played only by a dedicated few, so the names and faces he encountered were all familiar.
[Enchant buff plz]
[Ur already an OP class, why buff it more]
[Why does this person want Enchanters to get stronger? Have some shame. Buff Healers first.]
[Just die already, you fake girl!!!!]
He saw a red-haired woman, resembling Meisa, shouting something before being playfully pummeled by others.
Of course, since the plaza was a safe zone, no real damage was dealt, and the onlookers laughed, typing ‘lololol’ in response.
In truth, this was more akin to a performance. If they were in a combat zone, that woman could easily dispatch those teasing her in an instant.
That was precisely why her earlier words had become the target of mockery and criticism.
[Night Hunter promotion dungeon bugged again? Boss defense is 10x higher, no damage goes through]
[I’ll run it with u. Can handle up to 30x. Let’s go]
[Promotion dungeon became a party thing?]
[If I leave before the kill, it counts as solo clear.]
Elsewhere, two young men-one with black hair and the other with gray-chatted as they left the plaza together.
The gray-haired youth leading the way carried a massive bow slung over his shoulder, and somehow, his face seemed quite familiar.
Behind them, a blue-haired young man pointed at the pair while asking a middle-aged man with sky-blue hair wielding two axes.
[That guy’s same 4th tier as me, why’s his attack power two digits higher??]
[Cuz OtakuHam poured his life into this game… U should drop like 1 bil too lol]
[Why would anyone do that for this trash game;]
[Who forced u to pick a trash stat duelist class?]
Turan chuckled as he watched their exchange, but just then, a private message visible only to him popped up.
[Did u top up?]
It was from someone in the same guild as Turan, a player who had spent quite a bit on the game but was stuck with a subpar class, making them somewhat of an underdog.
In a guild filled with older players, their similar age made them close friends.
[Yeah, I did]
[Did it sneakily with mom’s phone while she was washing up]
[If u get caught, ur dead lol]
Turan snickered as he secretly chatted with the other player.
Out there, he might be a miserable loser, but in here, he could act as confidently as he pleased.
No matter how much he vented his real-world frustrations in this space, no one could connect the virtual him to the real him.
‘Open this damn door before I break it down, you bastard!’
At that moment, a loud banging on the door accompanied by a middle-aged man’s shout echoed from outside.
A woman’s voice, trying to hush him and saying everyone could hear, followed.
Turan flinched at his father’s voice, hunching in his chair and pulling a nearby blanket over himself.
It solved nothing, but it was an instinctive urge to protect himself somehow.
From beyond the door, crude insults poured in.
Calling him a life failure for dropping out of school and only playing games, mocking him for feeling good about stealing his mom’s phone to make purchases.
‘Damn it, why are they always on my case? Others make so much money they wouldn’t even blink at this. It’s their incompetence they’re mad about.’
Turan cursed inwardly, spreading the blanket to cover both himself and the monitor screen.
Doing so made it feel as if everything outside himself and the world on the screen ceased to exist.
If only he could become the character in that game instead of a dropout shut-in confined to his room-
* * *
“…Ah.”
Early in the morning, Turan awoke in his bed, mulling over the dream he had just experienced.
A dark room, a fantastical world, berating parents, and longing…
Though it clearly wasn’t his own, the memories felt as vivid as if he had conjured them himself.
‘Could this be… Kadram’s old memories?’
Not long ago, Turan had fragmented Kadram’s soul into tiny pieces, just as he had threatened to do with Lesion and the other half-elves.
It was a process undertaken only after confirming, until the very end, whether Kadram had any intention of communicating.
The result was dozens of soul fragments, similar to those that had once possessed Midan and Bisen.
Turan had absorbed one of the smaller fragments, but all he glimpsed were fleeting illusions.
Ultimately, he had recently entrusted the analysis of the fragments to the librarian, who had grown bored after finishing the organization of ancient texts. And now, suddenly, he had dreamed this dream.
‘It felt as if I became Kadram.’
In that world, Turan could think as if he were truly Kadram-or rather, a boy who had dropped out of high school and shut himself in his room.
The ‘real world’ that the half-elves had mentioned several times, which never quite resonated with him, suddenly felt incredibly close and tangible.
Rising from his seat, Turan recalled a story Lesion had casually mentioned in the past.
The surviving ancient Freya gods were relatively young, he had said.
The aging of the soul chains, or spiritual shackles, that bound body and soul had claimed the older ones first.
[Those truly powerful figures recorded in history were mostly top-tier players in the game. Naturally, acquiring such power required significant investment, which favored older individuals with more resources. Consequently, those who barely survived were mostly lesser gods who hadn’t made a name in this world’s history, younglings in their late teens to early twenties in real-world age.]
Lesion had spoken as if it were someone else’s story, remarking that in a time when countless popular games existed, only abnormal youths would pour their lives into a failed, outdated game.
If they had been more mature and knowledgeable, they might have reshaped this world decisively while body-hopping. Instead, all they could manage was to bumble around like clumsy kids on a ‘two-year vacation,’ he had said.
Back then, Turan hadn’t fully grasped the meaning of those words, but now he understood to some extent.
Not only that, but the conversations his grandfather Talis had with Carmine’s gods, and Ymir’s solitary ramblings, also started to make sense.
The reason why major gods like the Night Hunter or the Earth Mother, whose names echoed through history, couldn’t reincarnate was utterly trivial.
Sighing briefly at this realization, Turan suddenly stared at the closed door, imagining someone banging on it loudly.
The door must remain shut, and what lay beyond it was nothing but fear…
‘Maybe I’ll kill him if I ever go back.’
Muttering unconsciously as he thought of Kadram’s father, Turan soon clicked his tongue in annoyance.
He realized he had over-immersed himself in the dream, empathizing too deeply with those emotions.
If absorbing just one fragment among thousands of a soul resulted in this, continuing to absorb more might eventually make it impossible to distinguish Kadram’s emotions and thought patterns from his own.
‘Better to refrain from absorbing souls from now on.’
Absorbing a single fragment had allowed him to instantly grasp the mindset of the players, which was a positive effect. However, losing his sense of self in the process would render it meaningless.
To Turan, thinking in his own way with his own memories was the clear definition of ‘himself.’
“Who are you going to kill?”
At that moment, a voice came from the bed where he had just been lying.
Turan gently pressed down on Meisa’s shoulder as she rubbed her eyes and tried to sit up, covering her half-exposed body with the blanket.
“Meisa, if someone said Enchanters need a buff, what would you think?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“Nothing, just curious.”
Since her appearance was quite similar, he wondered if she might remember something, but it seemed that wasn’t the case.
* * *
After a rather unsettling morning, Turan finished breakfast as usual. Instead of heading to Baraha for work, he immediately assembled an army.
A select unit composed of twenty-five nobles, no knights included.
With even Meisa among them, though small in number, it was a force capable of clashing with any great family.
“Everyone ready?”
“Yes, Family Head!”
Turan, with determination in his eyes, loaded them onto the enlarged Bije and soared high into the sky.
A few people in Kalamaf City, seeing the enormous bird blotting out the sun, cried out in awe.
“It’s the Family Head’s bird!”
“Oh, Great Eagle, shield us with your mighty wings…”
Unaware of the prayers below, Bije muttered in a disgruntled tone.
-If it weren’t for them, we could go faster.
-Give them a break. This time, it’s better to travel together.
Perhaps because she had recently enjoyed toying with Ruban’s army alongside Turan, Bije seemed quite displeased at being slowed down by carrying so many others.
Since the distance wasn’t too great, they soon arrived at the mountain range separating the gray zone from the hilly region.
Turan halted Bije, who had been flying steadily, and asked a noble beside him.
“Which way from here?”
“A bit further east should do it, Family Head.”
The one who answered was a noble governing Solon, a city in this vicinity.
Their flight to this location was due to his report.
An unidentified force had entered the gray zone.
Originally, they had intended to make contact and ascertain the details, but astonishingly, this group had erected an opaque barrier around their entire encampment, preventing any glimpse inside.
This alone made it evident that the opposing force was an army of mages composed of numerous nobles.
Because of this, Turan had to abandon his ongoing attacks on the retreating Ruban army.
No matter what, his most critical base was Kalamaf and the gray zone.
After flying east for a few more minutes, Turan sensed a presence through tracking magic and altered Bije’s flight path.
Soon after, they confirmed the presence of an encampment on one side of the mountain range.
“Hmm…”
“Definitely looks like an army, no doubt about it.”
A group similar in structure to the Ruban army Turan had recently repelled was stationed in the mountains.
Positioned almost at the summit, it was a location difficult to definitively claim as belonging to either Carmine or Parsha territory.
Staring down at the site, Turan brushed off his clothes and spoke.
“I’ll take a closer look. Wait here.”
Before a response could even come, Turan leaped off Bije, activating invisibility and flight magic.
Then, using magnetic force magic, his body lurched forward as if pulled by an unseen hand.
Though it consumed a significant amount of magical power, for a short time, it allowed him to fly at a speed comparable to-or perhaps even surpassing-Bije’s.
This was the result of painstakingly mastering, albeit imperfectly, the technique Badal Arabion had demonstrated in the past.
‘Let’s see…’
Reaching the vicinity of the encampment in an instant, Turan first examined the barrier surrounding it.
Typically, barriers were erected like fences to conserve magical power, but this group had meticulously constructed a spherical barrier from ground to ceiling.
With this setup, even a Zahar noble couldn’t infiltrate without breaking the barrier.
Not only did it need to be completely dismantled and reassembled each time someone passed through, but the time and effort required to create it were immense, making it a method rarely used.
‘Zahar… No, they’re definitely wary of me. The barrier’s magical energy makes it hard to sense who’s inside. Just who are these people?’
His original plan had been to sneak in and identify them, but with this setup, that seemed unlikely.
Turan hesitated for a moment at the spot.
Should he attack and annihilate them outright, or make proper contact to uncover their identity?
After a brief deliberation, he chose the latter.
Attacking and killing them outright would make future negotiations difficult, and more importantly, he wasn’t alone this time.
If word spread through one of his companions that the head of Parsha had indiscriminately wiped out a force lingering in a border region, it would be somewhat problematic.
For someone of a great family head’s stature, a certain level of dignity was expected.
‘Alright.’
Using the flow he had become accustomed to during the recent battles with Ruban, Turan immediately fired a railgun toward the upper part of the barrier.
With a flash, the barrier warped violently before tearing apart and dissipating into magical energy.
Though relatively small, it was sturdier than the barrier of Ruban’s army. Even if he had attacked with lethal intent, it likely wouldn’t have dealt a fatal blow.
Unless a dozen or so Barrier bloodline nobles had gathered, they must have brought a Holy Relic-level item.
“Attack!”
“Everyone, defensive positions!”
As expected, chaos erupted among them. Turan watched for a moment before sensing Bije approaching from afar, carrying Parsha’s army.
They must have witnessed the aftermath of his railgun attack.
The unidentified army, having sensed it as well, stopped their frantic scrambling and turned their attention to the sky.
Thanks to this, Turan approached the unidentified army without much interference and confirmed their identity.
Though a few had conjured orbs of light, he could endure this level of exposure with a bit more magical power consumption.
‘So it’s Carmine.’
Over half of them wielded powers combining the Ripple bloodline, which manipulated water, and the Frost bloodline, which controlled ice.
The question was, why were they camped here?
Shouldn’t these people be busy reclaiming their capital, taken by the Giant Sea Serpents?
Judging by the senses of his Holy Relic, their composition didn’t quite resemble a full-fledged invasion force.
It consisted of one upper-tier noble, about six mid-tier, over ten lower-tier, and around sixty knights.
Standing right beside Carmine’s encampment, Turan shifted from complete invisibility to a lesser form that only hid his appearance and spoke.
[Daring to bring an army into Parsha’s lands. Does the head of Carmine desire war not only at sea but on land as well? If not, prostrate yourselves immediately.]
Aided by wind magic, a voice of unknown origin eerily enveloped the Carmine army.