Shepherd Wizard (Novel) - Chapter 161
Chapter 161
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Discord
The Zahar family’s army arrived at the agreed-upon location just as the sun had completely dipped below the horizon.
Osel, who was having an early evening meal with Turan, frowned as he noticed the dust cloud approaching from the distance.
“Arriving only now, quite late, aren’t they? Do they take us for fools?”
“In truth, considering the distance each of us has traveled to meet, this isn’t terribly late.”
While Turan’s Parsha family army, benefiting from well-maintained roads and numerous magical beasts, had arrived in just four days, the Ravitas army had taken nearly two to three weeks to cross the Southern Sea to reach this point. The Zahar army, coming from the far eastern Enril Desert, had likely been marching for at least a month and a half.
Moreover, thanks to periodic reconnaissance via Bije, Turan knew that they had deliberately adjusted their pace to arrive at this hour. After all, for the Zahar, nobles of the night, there could be no better time to meet a formidable opponent than under the cover of darkness.
“Then, shall we…?”
“Yes, let’s have them fall back to the rear.”
Turan and Osel ordered all but about a dozen of their respective troops near the table where they were dining to retreat roughly a hundred meters. Understanding the gesture, the Zahar army also halted at a similar distance, with only a dozen or so of their number advancing forward.
“Masks, how arrogant.”
Osel muttered with a displeased expression as he observed their approach.
As he noted, every single Zahar noble approaching wore a plain, unadorned mask. It was the same kind Turan had worn in the past when he posed as a subordinate of the Night Hunter to hunt Ymir. Wasn’t it said that one of the Zahar family’s signature combat tactics was to confuse their identity by repeatedly cloaking and uncloaking themselves while wearing such masks?
In that sense, approaching while masked could hardly be interpreted as a gesture of goodwill.
Perhaps sensing this displeasure, the figure at the forefront of the approaching group removed his mask and bowed respectfully.
“My apologies, esteemed masters of two great families. This is a tradition of Zahar, so I ask for your understanding.”
The one who had removed his mask was none other than Talis, the younger brother of the Zahar family head and Turan’s grandfather.
Seeing his face, Osel alternated glances between Talis and Turan with a look of astonishment.
“I’d heard you resembled each other, but this is… remarkable.”
“You don’t need to dwell on it. After all, I never saw his face even once until I was fully grown.”
Whispering softly, Turan didn’t respond directly to Talis’s words but instead gave an arrogant nod. It was a gesture no one could misinterpret as anything other than a summons for the true master to step forward, implying that speaking with someone of Talis’s rank was beneath him.
For a top-tier noble of a great family, one among the most powerful, this could be seen as a humiliating situation. Yet, unlike Jemel Carmine, who had openly bristled under similar circumstances, Talis merely smiled politely and bowed lightly to someone beside him, as if escorting them.
A man, half a head taller than the other Zahar nobles, removed his mask. His wrinkled face suggested he was just shy of sixty in commoner years, on the cusp of being called an old man. Harun Zahar, the head of the Zahar family, grinned jovially as he spoke.
“We’ve exchanged letters a few times, but this is our first meeting in person! A pleasure to meet you. I am Harun Zahar.”
* * *
The first encounter with the head of the Zahar family left an impression quite different from what Turan had anticipated.
Originally, the Zahar family was synonymous with cold, ruthless assassins, and their head was supposed to be the ultimate assassin among them, the epitome of terror. In contrast, Harun Zahar appeared as an unassuming, jovial old man, the kind one might encounter anywhere, with a friendly smile on his face.
Physically, he bore little resemblance to Turan. To be precise, he looked entirely different even from his own younger brother, Talis.
“May I join you?”
“Of course, great-uncle.”
Noting the title Turan used, Harun chuckled with a “heh heh” and took a seat across from the two family heads. The seating had been deliberately arranged so that Turan and Osel sat on one side, creating a confrontational dynamic with Harun on the other.
“Oh, quite a spread you’ve prepared in a place like this. Then, if you’ll excuse me.”
Sitting down, Harun tossed out the remark before unabashedly digging into the food and water placed before him. Even though nobles were generally immune to common poisons, his boldness was excessive.
Seeing this, both Turan and Osel could relax slightly. Once hospitality had been extended, if any among them attempted to harm the other, it would come at a significant moral cost. In the past, when Solion, the head of Baraha, violated this custom in Ravitas, it had sparked considerable backlash within his own family. Such traditions, seemingly trivial, could sometimes carry immense weight.
While Harun quenched his thirst, Turan used his Mimic Holy Relic to peer into the man’s inner self. The first thing he saw were the two symbols he himself possessed: the Hunter and the Tracker.
And then…
‘As expected, he has three as well.’
Though it had been somewhat of a gamble, Turan had surmised, given Harun’s ability to fight on par with Badal Arabion, that the Zahar family head also possessed three bloodline abilities. What appeared was something like a bubbling, violet swamp-a symbol unlike any Turan had seen before, its nature difficult to discern.
‘Could it be one of the Night Hunter’s other two bloodlines? The Alchemist or the Shadow… But those were supposed to have gone extinct long ago.’
Even with soul magic to bestow talents, awakening a bloodline that hadn’t been inherited was supposed to be impossible. Or perhaps it could be possible if it were a matter of awakening a latent bloodline. After all, the Night Hunter’s lineage originally carried all four powers, and Zahar’s ancestors would have inherited all of them as well. It was just that two of those bloodline powers had never been awakened.
Lost in thought for a while, Turan was brought back by Harun, who seemed oblivious to his musings, addressing him with a smile.
“Now I feel alive again. At my age, a long journey nearly kills me. The sun beating down, sand clogging my throat with every breath…”
“Hm.”
To the old man’s chatter, Osel, seated across from him, merely snorted in response. However, Turan could sense that despite his outward demeanor, Osel was inwardly flustered.
‘Well, that’s understandable.’
The Zahar family was a house of assassins, feared across the world, and their head was supposed to be the most formidable assassin of all, a terror of the night. Who would imagine such a figure as a talkative, unassuming old man with a casual appearance?
Yet Turan wasn’t fooled by this facade. Even as Harun spouted seemingly empty words, his eyes subtly scanned Turan. Considering that within him resided a fallen god who had lived for thousands of years, the leader of a faction no less, it would be foolish to take him as a simple, guileless person.
With a slight gesture to have those nearby retreat further, Turan addressed him politely.
“The journey must have been taxing. Let’s talk while you eat at your leisure.”
“Thank you. I’m fortunate to have such a fine great-grandson to pamper me like this.”
Though the food was hardly anything to call pampering, Harun ate as if he were genuinely famished. Indeed, judging by his large stature and robust build, he did seem like someone with a hearty appetite. Unlike Turan, who had a relatively lean frame, Harun’s thick limbs and sturdy waist, well-trained, suggested that in a physical confrontation with the same amount of magical power and bloodline abilities, Turan would likely be overpowered.
Quietly observing his opponent, Turan shifted his gaze to Harun’s equipment. On the surface, he appeared dressed in the garb of a desert nomad, but thanks to the Mimic Holy Relic, Turan could see that his entire body was wrapped in treasures of Holy Relic caliber. Most notable among them were the garment covering his upper body and a long, slender rod strapped to his back. It extended straight before bending slightly to the side at one point, and Turan couldn’t fathom how it was meant to be used. If only the cloth wrapped around it were removed, he might get a better idea…
“Hm, are you curious about this?”
Noticing Turan’s gaze, Harun grinned while eating and pointed to the rod on his back. Without hesitation, Turan nodded and asked.
“To be honest, I am a bit curious. Can you tell me about it?”
“Of course. But not for free.”
Brushing breadcrumbs off his hands with a pat, Harun looked at Turan with a smiling face. In that moment, Turan felt a strange sense of intimidation from the man’s gray eyes, one of the few features they shared.
‘This is…’
At that instant, within Harun Zahar’s inner self, the three symbols began to intertwine. The eyes, originally separate, seeped into a black mist, transforming into thousands of tiny eyes that enveloped the mist. Like seeds on a strawberry. Alongside this, a fourth symbol emerged, resembling a triangular glass vial. The bubbling violet liquid flowed into the vial, sloshing before spilling out and solidifying into thousands of arrow-like shapes. As the arrows melded into the mist adorned with eyes, aiming outward, it looked as if a giant with thousands of eyes and arms lurked within.
‘The Night Hunter!’
Seeing this, Turan instinctively understood. Harun Zahar had manipulated his soul to draw forth the power of the Night Hunter. Could he be planning an attack right here?
Sensing Turan’s body tense in anticipation of combat, Harun grinned and asked.
“Did you see it?”
“Yes.”
“As expected, you have the ability to peer into others’ souls.”
Turan had already anticipated that Harun would know of this ability. After all, Turan had repeatedly demonstrated his knack for mimicking symbol combinations through soul magic upon witnessing others do so. Combining symbols was something nearly impossible to master without knowing the correct method. Even if one imagined something like eyes seeping into a shadow and transforming into thousands of tiny eyes surveying all directions, replicating it without an example was incredibly difficult. For this reason, Turan had to employ various methods to demonstrate examples to Meisa and Solif, who couldn’t see such things directly.
“You may or may not know, but the Mimic originally didn’t have such an ability. It likely developed when it became a Holy Relic.”
“Is that so?”
“I’m probably the one who knows it best! After all, I’m the only one who traveled with that fellow for a while after coming to this place.”
Though this wasn’t the first time Turan had conversed with fallen gods, it was the first time one spoke so familiarly of the Mimic god. Laughing heartily, Harun turned to Osel beside him and said.
“You must know a fair bit as well, don’t you?”
“That you’re fallen ancient gods?”
“You’ve already told him everything! Well, I figured as much.”
Chuckling, Harun devoured another piece of bread before pointing behind him. There stood about a dozen Zahar nobles, including Talis, who had donned his mask once more.
“You’d both be thanking me if you knew how many times they’ve suggested attacking Parsha or wiping out Ravitas’s lineage.”
Unlike Osel, who was visibly shaken by this unexpected revelation, Turan nodded calmly in acknowledgment. Thanks to the information Berit had sent, he already knew that within Zahar’s upper echelons, there had been calls to strike at Parsha and Ravitas, and that it was this family head who had restrained them. Regrettably, even Berit didn’t know the reason behind this restraint.
“Now, shall we get to the main topic… Ravitas family head, if it’s alright, could we speak privately for a moment? It concerns the deepest secrets of our family. We don’t need to go far-just about ten meters should suffice.”
Turan detected a peculiar undertone in the other’s leisurely voice, as if boasting that the bond between Turan and Zahar was stronger than the alliance with Ravitas, subtly attempting to sow discord. Before Osel could respond, Turan spoke up.
“That’s fine. Osel here and I have helped each other on numerous occasions.”
“Hm. Well, if it’s to that extent.”
Though Osel frowned in apparent displeasure at Turan’s words and nodded, Turan could tell the young man was inwardly pleased. Harun, having noticed this as well, burst into laughter.
“On the surface, you look like a refined young lord, but you’re already adept at politics! As expected, the head of a family should be like that. If only my grandchild were half as capable.”
Though it sounded like acquiescence on the surface, Turan assumed there might be an intent to lower his guard embedded within. For young individuals, praise from the head of a great family-especially Zahar’s head-could be intoxicatingly sweet, numbing their senses.
As they continued this back-and-forth, Osel suddenly stood up and said, “I’ll step away for a moment. If it’s something I need to know, the head of Parsha will surely tell me.”
“Oh ho.”
Just as Harun had done earlier, this was a statement asserting that the alliance with Ravitas was stronger than the blood ties between Turan and Zahar. Seeing Osel move a short distance away, Harun pulled out a magical device from his chest, and the flow of air around them shifted. Turan realized this was a device that blocked sound from escaping, a technique he often used with wind magic, now crafted into a magical tool.
“Quite the prankster, aren’t you?”
“What, can’t I play a little trick on my great-grandson whom I’m meeting for the first time?”
Harun, jesting playfully, truly looked like an old man matching his outward appearance. This was entirely different from the frivolous twenty-something demeanor of Ymir or the casual banter of Carmine’s gods. Through conversations with the half-elves, Turan now understood why their mental ages varied so greatly. Despite living for thousands of years, their personalities were heavily influenced by the bodies they inhabited, and they also tailored their personas like actors playing roles.
In other words, just as Turan had different facets as the head of Parsha, Meisa’s lover, or Solif and Asiz’s friend, they too adapted their behavior to suit their audience. Just as Turan didn’t treat his subordinates with the familiarity of friends or his friends with the affection of a lover, they performed different roles depending on whom they faced.
“Now, let’s get to the reason for this meeting… Turan Parsha, are you aware that you are the reincarnation of the Night Hunter?”
It wasn’t a question asking if he might be the reincarnation of the Night Hunter, but one closer to a confirmation, asking if he knew he was. Turan paused to consider his response.
‘Should I affirm or deny it?’
The half-elves had forgotten much of what they knew before coming to this world over thousands of years, but one thing they remembered was who the old man before him had been in the past. According to them, the head of Zahar was originally one of the subordinate gods serving under the Night Hunter, Otas.
On the positive side, one might assume he would look favorably upon the reincarnation of the master he once followed. On the negative side, he might see it as an obstacle to his own dominance and seek to eliminate it. Fortunately, having contemplated this matter before arriving, Turan didn’t need much time to formulate his reply.
“To be honest, I’m not sure.”
“Not sure?”
“Yes. I’m aware that I was born with power far exceeding my origins, but I have no memories of being one of your kind.”
Hearing this candid response, Harun’s face showed no particular expression. Even his scent revealed no discernible emotion. Was he controlling himself with all his might, as Turan could, or did he genuinely feel nothing upon hearing this answer?
As Turan pondered this suspicion, Harun nodded and spoke.
“As expected. I thought as much. Thank you for answering honestly.”
“Then may I ask something as well? Why do you think I’m the reincarnation of the Night Hunter? Because of my Zahar bloodline?”
Shaking his head at Turan’s question, Harun replied.
“Because I’m the one who attempted to resurrect the Night Hunter.”