Shepherd Wizard (Novel) - Chapter 59

Chapter 59

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As Turan headed east, he first combined the newly acquired sulfur with most of the niter he had to create the “Soul of Fire.”

He left a small amount behind to show others what was needed to obtain more.

The amount of Soul of Fire he secured was just over three handfuls, slightly more than the niter he had, as niter was the most required ingredient in the production ratio.

It was unfortunate that while charcoal powder and sulfur were needed in smaller quantities, they were much easier to obtain.

Continuing eastward, Turan experimented with the Soul of Fire in various ways.

He found that scattering it with wind magic to cause a wide-area explosion or detonating it near his body to gain propulsion were the most practical methods.

‘Though gaining propulsion is a bit painful…’

Essentially, it was like being struck by an invisible force to move forcibly, so it couldn’t be helped.

Using explosions at the soles of his feet was less painful, but during one experiment, he forgot that his shoes had flammable sap on them and ended up blowing them off.

After spending a few days traveling and experimenting, Turan once again grabbed Bije’s legs and took to the skies.

Bije, who had shaken off his fatigue thanks to the hot springs, was eager to fly, but more than that, traveling through the wetlands was more arduous than expected.

First, there was the constant rain.

Once the rain stopped, he could simply dry himself off, but while it was raining, he had to endure it.

He couldn’t use telekinesis to block each raindrop, so he had to create a shield, which meant continuously moving the shield forward as he traveled.

After losing his waterproof boots during an experiment, his shoes were constantly filled with water, which was incredibly uncomfortable.

Second, the swarms of mosquitoes and other insects at night were unbearably annoying.

Other regions had their share of bugs, but the wetlands were on another level.

Whether he slept outdoors or in a village, as soon as he closed his eyes, bugs would crawl all over him, making his entire body itch. While their bites and stings couldn’t penetrate his skin, the sensation of them crawling on him was utterly disgusting.

Even Turan, who was used to traveling and sleeping outdoors as a shepherd, found it unbearable. If someone like Asiz had stayed here, they would have fled in terror after just one night, searching for a barrier mage.

Despite all the discomfort, there was little to gain. After visiting several villages and cities nearby to inquire about niter, he found nothing useful.

As for the white fairies, if there had been any clues in this land, Lida would have already found them, so there was no point in searching.

Wanting to escape all the discomfort, Turan flew high and headed east for a day.

In an instant, he covered several times the distance he had traveled over the past few days, and soon a blue horizon stretched before him.

It was the South Sea.

* * *

The South Sea smelled different from the North Sea Turan had visited before.

While the North Sea had a cooler, fishy smell, the South Sea had a warmer scent mixed with the smells of various sea creatures.

After enjoying the sight of the sea for the first time in a while, Turan headed south, passing through a few fishing villages before arriving at a port city.

It was a small city, with a population of a few thousand at most. Unlike Avacha or Komad, which were trade hubs, this place seemed to barely survive by catching and selling fish from the surrounding area.

Upon entering the city, Turan first found a fish merchant, bought dozens of mackerel, and headed to a secluded part of the coast.

There, he fed them all to Bije.

He had remembered the advice of a lady from the Dirmin family, whose name he could no longer recall, and it turned out to be quite effective.

Bije enjoyed the mackerel much more than the land animals he had eaten during their travels.

“You like this, right? How about the mackerel from the south?”

[Yes! It’s delicious!]

After treating Bije to a special meal for his hard work, Turan returned to the market to look for niter. As expected, he found some for sale.

However, as always, money was an issue.

“…This costs five gold coins?”

“It’s the elixir of immortality! Isn’t that cheap for something that could save your life? Do you want to watch your parents grow old and die?”

“They’ve already passed away.”

“Oh, no… I mean, you know what I mean.”

Come to think of it, the merchant who sold niter in Vanifel had said the same thing. It seemed to be a common sales tactic among niter merchants.

Of course, if this were truly the elixir of immortality, nobles like Lida from the Ravitas family wouldn’t be searching for white fairies.

Turan could have spent all his money to buy all the niter here, but it would have been a waste, and more importantly, it wouldn’t have balanced with the amount of sulfur he had.

After all, the amount of niter needed to make the Soul of Fire was more than seven times that of sulfur.

So, Turan bought a small amount of niter, just as he had done with sulfur, and asked where it came from.

However, this time, he didn’t get a straightforward answer.

“Oh, why do you want to know that?”

“It’s a secret, a secret!”

“Hey, outsider, if you keep asking questions like that, things might get unpleasant.”

No matter how many niter merchants he asked, the answers were all similar, and eventually, they started making threats.

It seemed there was some force keeping the source of the niter a secret.

‘If it’s being kept secret, it must be hard to obtain.’

If it were something that could be easily obtained by walking a few days, like sulfur, there would be no way to keep it a secret.

Its scarcity would also be non-existent.

Combined with the information that it came from the South Sea, it was likely that there was an island somewhere in the sea where niter was mined.

As Turan was deep in thought, he sensed someone approaching him stealthily from behind.

He prepared to break the person’s wrist the moment their hand reached for his pocket, but surprisingly, the hand landed on his shoulder instead.

“Hey, young man.”

Turning around, Turan saw an old man with missing teeth and shabby clothes—a typical vagabond.

The man gave Turan a sly smile and got straight to the point.

“Looking for where the niter comes from?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve already bought some, but you’re looking for more. Planning to sell it?”

The fact that he knew Turan had bought niter suggested he had been watching him.

It wasn’t surprising that Turan hadn’t noticed. He wasn’t paying attention to the hundreds of people coming and going in the market.

After a moment of thought, Turan nodded.

“Something like that.”

“Well, I can guide you to where the niter comes from.”

“What do you want in return?”

Only a fool would believe that a stranger would guide him to the source of niter for free.

As expected, the man answered immediately.

“Nothing too big. Money will do. The niter is on an island. You’ll need to pay for the boat ride.”

This matched Turan’s earlier deduction.

Turan glanced around and asked the man, “How much?”

“Fifteen gold coins. Not too expensive, right? If you mine the niter and sell it elsewhere, you can make several times that.”

“Alright. But I’d like to pay after confirming the location of the niter source.”

“Of course. Who would trust me enough to hand over that much money now? Tomorrow, about an hour after sunset… see that mountain over there?”

“Yes.”

The man pointed to a mountain that rose on one side of the city.

It wasn’t very high, about the height of a local hill.

“If you go around the back of that mountain, there’s a small village. A boat will come there. You can pay when you board.”

“Thank you for the information.”

The man chuckled at Turan’s thanks.

“I should be thanking you.”

After the man left, Turan found a nearby inn and rented a room.

As soon as he entered, Bije squirmed and scratched at his claws, so Turan quickly took out a sand-filled slate from his large pouch.

[That man is a liar!]

The slate, with its limited space, used short and concise sentences.

But having had many such conversations, Turan had no trouble understanding.

“The man who said he’d show us where the niter comes from?”

[Yes!]

“Why do you think that?”

Bije made a thoughtful expression before writing again.

[niter expensive, if know, dig yourself!]

“That’s right. Wow, you’re really smart. People often get fooled because they don’t think of that.”

Turan laughed and patted Bije’s head, impressed by the hawk’s sharp analysis, which was hard to believe came from a non-human.

[Did Turan know?]

“I had a rough idea.”

Amid the stench of someone who hadn’t washed in days, there was the scent of excitement from a predator about to hunt.

From what Turan remembered, he had only smelled that on people once before.

Bandits about to rob someone.

“It’s probably a smuggling ship or a pirate ship. If we go, they’ll likely rob us and try to enslave us.”

Having heard various stories from sailors while on the Blue Marlin, Turan knew a fair bit about how things worked at sea.

[Then why?]

“If friends who can provide information gather on their own, there’s no reason not to go.”

If Turan had captured the local merchants, shown them magic, and threatened or tortured them, he could have easily found out where the niter came from.

But the reason Turan didn’t do that was because the merchants’ refusal to tell him was justified.

They had no obligation to reveal the source of their livelihood.

In the midst of this, here comes someone trying to take his wealth and freedom, someone he could unleash his cruelty on without guilt?

What could be more welcome than that?

When Turan had thanked the man at the end, it was no empty gesture.

* * *

The next day, Turan stayed in the inn all day practicing magic and only went out as the appointed time approached.

After politely acknowledging the gatekeeper’s explanation that he wouldn’t be allowed back inside the walls after curfew, Turan walked to the place the vagabond had described and found a small village.

A particularly unpleasant-looking young man sitting on the village fence asked in a mocking tone, “Are you here to board the ship?”

“Yes.”

“Go on in.”

As Turan entered the village, he heard snickering from behind.

The situation reeked of a trap, but just as he was thinking that, he sensed a presence ahead and frowned.

‘What’s this now?’

A strong flow of magical energy, similar to what he had felt at the sulfur hot springs.

Moreover, the power was stronger than Lida and even Aikul, though slightly weaker than Meisa.

There were probably fewer than a hundred top-tier mages from great families worldwide, so why did he keep running into them?

Unless he had some kind of magnetic pull that attracted planetary-level mages.

‘A high-ranking noble from Ravitas… could it be the heir? But why here?’

Puzzled, Turan slowly moved forward.

If someone had set a trap to capture him, they wouldn’t have told him to come at night.

In this level of darkness, even if Meisa herself were chasing him, Turan was confident he could escape.

The small presences nearby were probably knights acting as guards.

As he walked toward the ship on the shore, analyzing the situation, he soon heard a lively voice.

“Hey, is that really true?”

“Would I make it up? I begged them to spare me, and they said, ‘Crawl between my legs, and I’ll let you live!’ So I rolled over and kicked them there…”

Around a bonfire in front of the sailing ship, rough-looking men who clearly seemed to be sailors were gathered.

The knights Turan sensed were among them, likely the highest-ranking individuals.

And in the middle of the sailors, a young man was chatting away with a carefree attitude.

He looked about five or six years older than Turan, with short silver hair and a slightly short but broad-shouldered, well-built frame.

He was the unidentified great mage Turan had sensed.

“Hey, stop bragging already!”

One of the sailors smacked the mage on the back of the head, but surprisingly, instead of getting angry, he just laughed.

A top-tier noble or heir from a great family acting like this among commoners?

While Turan himself often disguised himself as a commoner, seeing such a scene from a third-person perspective was absurd.

It was like seeing a lion casually mingling with a pack of wolves.

Then, the silver-haired mage’s gaze shifted to Turan and then to Bije perched on his side.

“Huh…?”

The mage pointed at Bije, looking genuinely surprised, as if he had seen someone he knew in an unexpected place.

Why would a noble from Ravitas have any connection to Bije?

As Turan wondered, one of the sailors suddenly clapped his hands.

“Alright, all the guests are here! Let’s get going!”

“Oh, is it time already?”

The silver-haired mage blinked in confusion, and the sailor who had smacked him earlier grinned and said, “The stories were fun, but it’s time to board the ship. First, put down all your belongings. We’ll carry them for you.”

“Uh… thank you, but I can carry them myself. There are some valuable items.”

The sailor responded by kicking the mage in the shin.

“No sense at all. From now on, your job is to scrub the deck, kid.”

“What about the ruins of the Frea deities you promised to take us to?”

“How would we know about that?”

The mage burst out laughing at the sailor’s words.

At first glance, it seemed like a cheerful laugh, but Turan could sense the deep malice hidden within.

“Damn it, fooled again. These b*st*rds. How many times have I been tricked around here?”

Whoosh! Flames erupted from the silver-haired mage’s body.

Not the usual reddish flames used by other mages, but bright platinum flames, like the sun.