Shepherd Wizard (Novel) - Chapter 35

Chapter 35

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Seeing Turan disappear into darkness, Dolf tilted his head.

Invisibility magic?

What a trivial magic learned by spy knights that only hides appearance while presence remains exposed.

But when he reached out to where the opponent had stood and touched nothing, his puzzlement turned to shock and terror.

Disappearing without leaving even footprints in the sand, undetectable even using all hearing and smell…

No one in this desert was unaware what that meant.

“Could it be, Zahar-ack!”

Before finishing his words, Dolf screamed and fell to one knee from intense pain surging through the back of his head.

Warm blood flowed down his neck, perhaps from a cracked skull.

‘What was that? What hit me?’

Turning around, he saw an egg-sized stone rolling on the ground.

Before he could process what it was, second and third stones flew in succession striking his side and back.

Each hit with enough force to shatter bones of an ordinary noble.

Fortunately he could deflect the last one with his arm as he saw it coming.

In terrible pain, the brain of a noble who had wandered for a hundred years desperately devised survival means.

“Flames!”

Along with an unfamiliar spell, flames arose around him.

First method of dealing with invisibility magic – illuminate surroundings.

But the flames couldn’t extend beyond Dolf’s body.

Due to warrior bloodline’s characteristic unfamiliarity with releasing magic power.

The opponent was surely preparing another attack from darkness beyond the light’s reach.

‘Where are you, where!’

Dolf kept turning his head trying to detect where the attack would come from.

At least with thrown stones, he could dodge or deflect once they became visible leaving the body.

If attacked at close range, taking one hit to grab hold would mean his victory…

Just then, he saw five or six fireballs bloom far away.

They spun in place several times before flying toward him at tremendous speed.

“Aaaaargh-!”

Dolf charged forward while covering his face and taking the incoming fireballs.

Though he felt his clothes burning and flesh cooking on his arms, shoulders and abdomen, he grit his teeth and endured.

If he could just somehow, somehow catch him-

“Come out! Come out!”

Reaching where the fireballs had been shot from, Dolf screamed while swinging his arms around and kicking up sand.

But there was no feeling of hitting anything.

A hopeless fight against a being he could neither see nor feel…

As his mind half-frozen from pain and fear cooled, some judgment returned.

‘Run away!’

Fighting a Zahar magician in the desert at night was literally suicide.

Especially considering he was just a warrior bloodline noble, not even from a great family.

Dolf began sprinting in a random direction.

He even threw away the pouch at his waist as it interfered with running.

“Huff, hah, huff!”

True to warrior bloodline, his speed was far faster than ordinary nobles.

Though doubled strength doesn’t mean doubled running speed, at least strong leg power helps… With better stamina too, just continuing to run like this should let him survive for now.

Though the thought of living his whole life hunted by Zahar nobles made him want to wet himself-

As if mocking his relief, a soft flapping sound came from behind.

Dolf’s face turned white as he turned his head.

“Ah…”

Above in the pitch black sky, Turan gripping the black eagle’s leg with one hand looked down at him.

“Quite sturdy even if not guardian bloodline. An ordinary noble would have died from that much. Or perhaps you have some magical device helping with defense?”

“P-please have mercy-”

“You know I can’t do that.”

The gray eyes looking down showed not a shred of humanity let alone mercy.

Dolf tightly shut his eyes seeing the fireball plunging down.

* * *

Turan looked down expressionlessly at the corpse lying with its whole body burned.

He felt not a hint of guilt at the miserable burned death.

Just being stronger, when you think about it he was no different from the bandits met when first coming down the hill.

‘Still, much stronger than expected… or rather, sturdier? If warrior is this tough, I’ll need stronger attack means to fight guardian bloodline.’

He thought if the opponent had been a properly trained warrior, and if he hadn’t used Zahar bloodline power, victory wouldn’t have come easily.

His physical defense could withstand over a dozen stone throws and fireballs after all.

Of course such defense itself came from warrior bloodline ability so it was a meaningless assumption, but for Turan who was reluctant to openly reveal his abilities, it was something to consider.

“Good work.”

[Easy]

When the black eagle wrote in the sand while sending proud feelings, Turan smiled and scratched its head.

Without this one, catching the fleeing Dolf would have been difficult.

It seemed he should try to obtain a magical device suitable for attack when possible.

Or develop powerful magic that could pierce defense.

Shortly after, Turan absorbed Dolf’s magic power together with the black eagle.

Originally monsters absorbed magic power through eating, but the black eagle spiritually bound to Turan could absorb magic power like human magicians under his guidance.

While watching the pale green light being drawn half into Turan and half into the black eagle, suddenly another beam of light shot up from the corpse.

“…Huh?”

The light was being drawn into Turan’s pocket.

The unidentified holy relic obtained from the sea.

It was sharing in Dolf’s magic power as if it were a magician itself.

After absorption finished, Turan immediately opened the holy relic’s lid.

Where it had been empty, a small amount of green liquid had appeared, its identity not hard to guess.

‘To think it was an item for storing magic power.’

Though he tried rolling it around inside the holy relic or attempting absorption, there was no response.

How should this be used?

Should he perhaps try drinking it directly?

After pondering for a while, Turan closed the lid.

Though there were few toxic substances that could harm a noble’s body, he was still reluctant to consume something unknown… Moreover this was an item left by the Frea divine tribe or beings of similar level.

It seemed better to learn more before deciding.

After finishing magic power absorption, he searched the corpse but unfortunately found no particularly useful items.

Well, if he had any amazing magical devices he would have used them when about to die.

At least there were some jewels in the pouch thrown while fleeing that could fill his depleted fortune.

This was actually better than having too many gold coins like before.

‘Well then… time to send him off.’

Setting fire to the corpse with magic power dispersed, before long clothes and flesh all turned to ash flying high into the sky.

Finally crushing and scattering the bones with wind, all traces of Dolf Meren’s existence in this world completely vanished.

* * *

The next morning, Turan began flying southwest riding the black eagle.

As felt before, the world looked down upon from the sky was truly small.

So small it even brought feelings of futility about why people struggled so hard to live in such places.

“Are you tired?”

To Turan’s question, the black eagle peeped while sending feelings that it was completely fine.

While Dolf’s magic power was just decent nourishment for Turan who was stronger, it was quite helpful for the black eagle, so now it could fly quite long even without Turan lightening his body.

After flying for a day and a half passing dozens of small oases and three fairly large cities.

Turan realized he had arrived at his destination.

‘That’s it.’

It was basically a white square pyramid shaped building, but its exact form was hard to tell unless viewed from very far away.

Because both its height and base length were all in units of hundreds of meters.

An overwhelming scale that could only have been made by gods themselves…

Looking down at it brought similar awe to when first seeing Orem’s library.

According to the travel journal, this building was called the Gods’ Tomb, though contrary to the name no god was actually buried there.

Something about displaying some artifacts from the old empire era whose exact purpose was unknown?

Probably like Orem’s library, truly valuable items would have been moved somewhere around the empire’s fall.

The first thing Turan felt upon landing some distance from the Gods’ Tomb was notably warmer air than before.

Perhaps from coming south.

Though not quite hot enough to say it’s hot yet, someone with a sturdy body probably wouldn’t need long sleeves.

In summer it must become scorching hot as described in travel journals.

“Want to go play somewhere suitable until evening? I’ll call you then.”

[Tasty food!]

“Alright. I’ll prepare something tasty so don’t worry.”

After sending off the black eagle that could now even write punctuation marks, Turan entered Banipel City looking like an ordinary traveler.

From his experience acting as a fallen noble, he preferred traveling as a commoner unless necessary.

Most importantly, while revealing noble status while acting as commoner was possible, the reverse was difficult.

“Guest? Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

Entering the city, Turan found an inn-restaurant and ordered a simple meal… Since he was the only customer, the innkeeper sat across and chatted, allowing him to gather information.

“Running away from home to travel alone? My, how reckless. Haven’t met any bandits or monsters?”

“I was lucky.”

The innkeeper in his forties looked at him like a naive youngster.

Such a gaze was appropriate for a merchant’s son who ran away to see one ruin, walking a full week.

“More importantly, do you know how to enter the Gods’ Tomb here? Books said money was enough.”

“You even read books? Really must be from a wealthy family. Anyway, I hear you can’t enter now.”

“Why?”

Though the travel journal clearly wrote that, Turan soon realized that book must have been written at least over ten years ago.

No, perhaps even several decades.

The policy of the family ruling Banipel might have changed in that time.

But according to the innkeeper’s following words, that wasn’t the case.

“Nothing special, just been that way since high-ranking people came about a week ago. Even a merchant caravan that visited recently had people wanting to see the ruins but couldn’t.”

“High-ranking people?”

“Those people, you know. You know.”

“Ah.”

From his roundabout way of speaking as if afraid to even mention names, Turan finally understood what the innkeeper meant.

Zahar knights or nobles had visited this city.

‘This is troublesome.’

So the high-ranking people were monopolizing the ruins wanting to sightsee among themselves without commoner interference.

Though there wasn’t much to see according to accounts, wonder what they’re doing for a whole week.

After brief consideration, Turan decided to just stay here until they left.

He didn’t want the hassle of someone reading Talis’s shadow in his face like Family Head Karl had if he showed his face unnecessarily.

“I’ll have to stay here for a while then.”

“Got money?”

“Of course.”

Even leisurely nobles surely wouldn’t sightsee ruins for weeks or months.

‘Wonder what I should give the black eagle.’

Since it didn’t seem to like dates much before, and fish couldn’t be obtained in the desert, seemed he’d need to catch a monster nearby.

* * *

“Ferga! Ferga! Where are you!”

“I’m here so stop shouting! They’ll hear!”

In pitch darkness, Ferga Zahar irritably shouted while hooking chakrams on his fingers.

Beyond darkness impenetrable even to Zahar bloodline’s night vision ability, bizarre cries echoed.

The Gods’ Tomb has a hidden underground.

Words he heard from his grandfather, the Zahar family head, in childhood.

The family head had said jokingly that if you can solve its secret, you might become the next family head.

Dozens of years since then, he visited the Gods’ Tomb once yearly searching for the passage underground.

Since forcibly breaking through a divine facility was unacceptable, he tried methods like tapping wall gaps or speaking secret languages found only in ancient texts.

Naturally there were no results.

But several days ago, visiting the tomb half-habitually with some close friends, suddenly a door to underground opened… Ferga had rushed down rejoicing that he’d finally solved the secret, that he would become the next family head.

But what awaited him was a labyrinth filled with pitch darkness where even proper vision was impossible, and unknown monsters lurking within.

[□□□□□□—-!]

Strange life forms seeming neither monster, human, nor other race.

These beings that looked like humans twisted as maliciously as possible not only had powerful strength, but being accustomed to the bizarre darkness made them difficult even for Zahar elites to handle.

Moreover with even the passage up gone, they had to remain trapped underground for days without knowing how long.

“Water left?”

“None…”

“Make some quick. Need to at least wet our throats.”

Along with the order, bizarre cries echoed from behind.

Why, Ferga thought he somewhat understood the meaning contained in those voices.

His friend beside him muttered softly, showing it wasn’t just his imagination.

“The night hunter… has returned… to the desert?”