Shepherd Wizard (Novel) - Chapter 180

Chapter 180

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“A travel ban, you say? I’m not entirely sure, but it’s probably been about five days. Could be longer.”

After leaving the clothing store, Turan immediately headed to the inn where carriages were lined up and skillfully mingled among the merchants who were drinking.

When they shared a glass each of the extremely potent date palm liquor characteristic of desert regions, a young merchant with a flushed face began chattering.

“A whole week… and no one knows what’s going on?”

“That’s right. Well, perhaps those wealthy folks over there might know something.”

The young merchant pointed toward a trading house.

While poor peddlers like them stayed at inns like this, the real trading companies that operated large-scale operations with valuable and numerous goods used separately built accommodations.

After all, if you rested mixed in with others, you never knew what might get stolen.

“Is there any way to speak with those people?”

“Well? Perhaps if you brought some rare goods, they might listen to you…”

“Ah, I see. Thank you.”

After gathering adequate information, Turan drank his share of liquor, put down his money, then gently detached the merchant who was clinging to him saying to drink more before leaving, and exited the inn.

‘Completely blocking travel…’

Certainly, something was definitely happening inside Zahar.

It had been the right decision to stop by this city to gather information.

If he hadn’t, he would have entered Aksum without a second thought and wandered around only to get caught.

Afterward, Turan stealthed in an alley and flew up again toward Aksum city.

Before long, he could see green fields and a massive lake like a mirage, and the sand-colored walls surrounding such verdant land.

‘So this is…’

The stronghold of the Zahar family, the capital Aksum.

Unlike other cities in the Enril Desert that could accommodate at most around a hundred thousand people due to chronic water shortages, this was a metropolis that could house hundreds of thousands.

Around the outskirts of that massive city, mounted police with swords rode around with menacing gleaming eyes.

As if they would not tolerate anyone passing through.

Of course, they couldn’t detect the presence of Turan, who had absorbed Bije into his body and was leisurely flying using wind magic.

‘The city’s atmosphere seems quite bad. Though I suppose that’s natural.’

Markets and streets that would normally be bustling with people were utterly deserted.

Of course, given the city’s scale and the fact that people still had to make a living, there were some moving about, but their expressions were uniformly dark.

This was natural since a city was fundamentally like a living organism.

Sealing off a city was like a person skipping meals, and for such a large metropolis to have been doing this for five days, it was bound to starve.

At least from the atmosphere, it didn’t seem like people would start dying of starvation yet, and the blockade would probably be lifted before then.

Of course, by then Zahar would have hidden whatever they wanted to conceal.

As Turan was circling the area moderately, he frowned upon seeing that one part of the city was damaged.

The devastation, spanning at least several hundred meters, proved that there had been clashes between powerful mages here.

‘This is?’

Some of those traces even looked quite familiar.

Perhaps the gun-like weapon that Harun Zahar had used during their past sparring match would have created exactly this kind of scene.

As a skilled mage, Turan could roughly guess what kinds of magic had been used just from those traces that hadn’t yet been cleaned up.

While it was only a matter of possibility, those who had fought here had likely used not just ordinary magic but skills as well.

‘Now, I’d like to hear more about this story…’

Turan found a market relatively close to where the battle traces remained and quietly observed several merchants before spotting his target.

It was a peddler selling dried provisions.

After confirming that he had sold dried meat powder to a customer who appeared to be a drifter wearing clothes similar to Turan’s, he stole some money, disguised his face, and emerged from an alley.

“Excuse me.”

“Hmm?”

“I’m the person who bought meat powder earlier, but looking now, I think I accidentally paid too little, so I came back.”

“Is that so? I’m sure I received the proper amount…”

The peddler looking down at his money pouch exclaimed “Oh!”

Since there had been few sales today, the money was easily visible at a glance, and clearly two silver coins were missing.

“There really is money missing?”

“Here it is.”

When Turan offered the money he had just stolen, the peddler looked at him with an admiring expression.

“Well, I’ve never seen someone as honest as you in my life. If someone had bought goods without paying, ninety-nine out of a hundred would have considered themselves lucky and kept quiet.”

“How could I do that? The Night Hunter is always watching over us.”

When Turan piously drew a sacred symbol with his hand, the peddler took a similar posture.

After opening his mouth this way, Turan glanced toward the devastation nearby and asked.

“Speaking of which, that sight is truly terrifying no matter how many times I see it.”

He didn’t ask what that was, because even as a drifter, it wouldn’t make sense not to know why such destruction had occurred.

At least it was something that happened during the five days since Aksum was sealed, so someone staying in this area should have heard from people around them even if they hadn’t seen it directly.

As expected, the peddler also nodded along with Turan’s knowing attitude.

“Indeed it is… That night I really couldn’t sleep. The thunder kept going, buildings were collapsing, I thought even those demons from Arabion had invaded.”

At the peddler’s words, Turan was quite surprised though he didn’t show it outwardly.

Why was Arabion suddenly mentioned here?

Well, perhaps he had mistaken gunfire for thunder.

To ignorant merchants, the two wouldn’t be much different.

“Did you see it directly, brother?”

“I didn’t see it myself, just heard about it. I was sleeping soundly.”

“Hah, is it possible to sleep while hearing such sounds?”

“I was so drunk…”

When Turan deliberately showed embarrassment, the peddler burst into laughter.

While similar culture existed in other regions, for the men of Enril, being weak with alcohol was shameful.

“If you saw it directly, could you tell me about it? I’m curious about what happened then, but I need to meet someone who saw it firsthand.”

“I didn’t see it directly either since my house is a bit far away, but I did sense something. Light bright enough to see like daytime in the middle of the night flashed several times, and later I even saw purple flashes.”

“Oh ho.”

While they were chattering, Turan felt someone quickly approaching from behind.

When he deliberately didn’t turn his gaze, the peddler who noticed the presence first hurriedly bowed his head.

“W-well then, I received the money properly. Please go.”

“Mm.”

When he nodded and turned around, a woman in white robes embroidered with complex patterns was looking at him.

Recognizing that her identity was one of Zahar’s knights, Turan immediately bowed deeply, and the woman glanced at him once before walking toward the interior of the market.

“Hey, you people! What are you chattering about like that! If you came to the market, just do your trading quickly!”

From the sharp reprimand, it seemed she was restraining even people gathering and chattering in this area.

The reason was undoubtedly to control content like what he had just overheard.

Slipping back into a deserted alley and changing his face, Turan reflected on the story he had just heard.

‘Did Badal come here directly… or someone with Badal’s holy relic?’

Badal Arabion.

Meisa’s father and the head of Arabion, that old man’s elongated hammer wielded the power to control purple lightning.

With deepening curiosity, Turan looked at the mountain slightly north of Aksum city, at the fortress situated atop that mountain.

The detailed answers would probably be inside there.

‘The Red Fortress…’

That fortress built with dark red bricks, unlike Aksum city’s outer walls, was the stronghold of the Zahar family.

According to Berit, it was a place that blocked infiltration through stealth even more thoroughly than the Parsha main house.

Well, between Arabion and Zahar, Zahar would inevitably be better at preventing infiltration by stealthed mages.

While Arabion had to imagine what kinds of things opponents might do and create defensive systems accordingly, Zahar could directly create defensive systems, attempt breaches, and then improve them.

‘If I had known I’d have to infiltrate all the way in there, I would have asked Berit about infiltration methods.’

It was a miscalculation not to anticipate that even if something went wrong, they would seal off Aksum city itself and operate so thoroughly closed off like this.

But going back to ask now would waste two days just for that, so he had to find a solution immediately.

As Turan stealthily approached the Red Fortress slowly, he shuddered at the powerful magical force emanating from the city’s outer walls.

He could tell that the entire wall was imbued with some mystical power, closer to a holy relic.

Like the Temple of the Sun, the stronghold of the Baraha family.

‘Though it doesn’t emit light that reveals stealth like that place.’

At least infiltration using tunneling would definitely not work.

Wondering if he could infiltrate through disguise, Turan approached and clicked his tongue at the inspection process required to enter and exit the fortress.

“Name?”

The person trying to enter the fortress appeared to be a servant supplying food to the interior, and when the knight in charge of inspection asked, instead of answering aloud, he wrote with charcoal on an iron plate placed in front.

Seeing this, the knight nodded and continued asking about birthplace, favorite food, and such before letting him pass.

‘There’s no way I can get past that.’

Probably making them write instead of speak was to prevent answers from being overheard from a distance like now.

The correct answers would have been prepared separately in advance.

Normally, conducting inspections this way would be an excessive waste of administrative capacity, but now was different.

Since the entire city was under control, there were hardly any people entering and exiting the fortress.

Faced with a security system that seemed completely aimed at the Mimic holy relic’s abilities, Turan clicked his tongue and gave up on infiltrating through the checkpoint.

‘The secret way in… Berit told me about one, but if Berit knows it, I have to assume the other side knows too.’

The reason he had been able to infiltrate the Temple of the Sun in the past and extract Solif’s parents was because the secret passage Solif had told him about was something only someone at the level of Baraha’s heir would know.

Turan circled around the fortress walls, lost in thought, unable to think of a proper breakthrough method.

‘Infiltrating from the sky won’t work, and digging underground probably… won’t work either. Considering what that fortress wall might be.’

The identity of that dark red fortress was the bones of the giants that the Night Hunter had shot and killed in ancient times.

More precisely, brick made by mixing that bone powder with ash and stone?

And he had seen with his own eyes that the remaining flesh had become the monsters of the underground labyrinth.

Whether it was true was naturally unknowable, but it was certain that the Red Fortress’s defensive power was similar to the Temple of the Sun, making breakthrough by ordinary methods nearly impossible.

A full-power railgun might be able to pierce it, but the aftermath alone would summon all the Zahar nobles in this land.

“What to do…”

After pondering briefly, an idea suddenly occurred to Turan.

If it was made from giants’ bones, it meant it was part of a living being, not a natural object.

And Turan had a substance that could gnaw through living things remarkably well.

Death water, what the gods called hydrochloric acid.

What had Solif said when looking at this substance that was difficult to use due to its excessive aggressiveness?

‘If you pour this on a person, not even bones would remain.’

It was time to see if that was really true.

* * *

That afternoon, Turan began digging a tunnel in a warehouse located about five hundred meters from the Red Fortress.

Judging by the dust on the items, it seemed the owner hadn’t visited in quite some time, making it a space where discovery was unlikely unless one was truly unlucky.

Turan made a hole in the corner of that warehouse and entered the ground, creating a small breathing hole by digging out earth and adding it to the back as he advanced.

This method made it possible to move underground without dumping large amounts of earth at the starting point.

Though it was somewhat troublesome.

As he leisurely dug underground and moved, Turan clicked his tongue softly at a thought that occurred to him.

“It’s certainly wasteful.”

Compared to when he could use the power of the Earth bloodline with the Mimic holy relic in the past, he felt the scale and efficiency of power he could wield had greatly decreased.

Back then, hadn’t it been possible to instantly burrow underground and then surprise Meisa by popping up in front of her?

Of course, there was nothing among the five bloodlines he currently possessed that he would trade for the Earth bloodline.

Baraha’s light and fire, Ruban’s close combat, Nagin’s soul specialization, Ravitas’s healing and purification, Carmine’s water and cold.

None of the five great families’ powers were worth trading for just the Earth bloodline.

Even while lost in such thoughts, his body skillfully deployed earth transformation magic to pierce through the solid mountain.

The mountain supporting the fortress was made of hard granite material that ordinary people wouldn’t dare attempt to dig, but at Turan’s touch, it crumbled like sand, creating a path.

An hour later, Turan’s hand touched dark red brick as he spiraled upward.

“Finally here…”

Could he really pierce this fortress wall as he had thought?

Half-doubting, Turan switched his holy relic to the Carmine bloodline and opened a crystal container bottle from his pocket.

When the death water controlled by fluid manipulation magic stuck to the ceiling, a sizzling, burning sound occurred.

“Oops.”

The first thing he realized was that when melting something with death water, large amounts of smoke were produced.

While it might be fine above ground, in a closed underground space, he would naturally have to bear the brunt of it.

Turan immediately deployed wind magic to flow the escaping smoke into the small passage behind.

‘I’ll have to hold my breath for a while.’

About ten minutes passed like this?

Finally, he could see that the bottom part of the Red Fortress had been scooped out as if with a spoon.

Remarkably, the death water had succeeded in piercing even the holy relic made in ancient times!

Of course, this was only because the Red Fortress used parts of living beings as materials.

‘The Temple of the Sun couldn’t be pierced with this.’

Turan still vividly remembered Solif’s horrified face when he had experimented out of curiosity.

Though he disliked Baraha’s formalities, the building itself was like half a hometown to him.

Ten more minutes like this.

When the death water he had was almost completely exhausted, finally a hole large enough for one person to enter was created.

Turan lightly jumped up and glanced down below.

‘If nothing special happens, I mustn’t forget to ventilate when I leave…’

The smoke produced when death water burned flesh probably wasn’t good for the body.

If he didn’t want to see someone who entered the warehouse later die, it was an issue he absolutely had to pay attention to.

Engraving this small but important matter in his mind, Turan first checked where he had emerged.

Since it was a relatively dark place, it didn’t seem to be somewhere people mainly frequented.

Judging by several cleaning tools, it was probably an underground storage room.

It was somewhat curious to enter from a warehouse and emerge in a storage room, but it wasn’t such a coincidence.

Places where miscellaneous items were usually stored were typically underground.

As Turan carefully tried to open the door while stealthed, he quickly closed it at the light that immediately shone in.

He had sensed it wasn’t ordinary light but magical radiance.

‘Wow, I heard about it but it’s really no joke.’

After composing himself briefly, Turan released his stealth and opened the door, poking his head out.

He could see a long corridor brightly lit by light orbs embedded in rows along the ceiling.

The stronghold of Zahar, the family of assassination, was shining more brilliantly than anywhere else in the world.