Shepherd Wizard (Novel) - Chapter 6

Chapter 6

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Turan finally managed to get information in exchange for a mug of beer.

If you want to find masu with bounties, go to the city hall and ask the official in charge.

When he asked what city hall and officials were, the serving girl burst out laughing.

“Not knowing even this, you really are from the countryside!”

The giggling serving girl explained that city hall was a building in the center of the city where various public affairs were handled, and officials were people employed by the city’s lord.

Since the sun had completely set today, he could visit the city hall tomorrow morning to inquire.

“But why are you looking for masu? Don’t tell me you’re a masu hunter too?”

“What’s a masu hunter?”

“You know, people who believe they can become magicians by hunting masu.”

She explained that there was a widespread superstition that ordinary people could gain magical powers by hunting masu, and some risked their lives hunting masu for this purpose.

While most people treated them as mentally ill, there were surprisingly many who aimed for this as a way to rise in status?

While listening to her explanation, someone placed their hand on Turan’s shoulder.

“Hey, Rena. Becoming a magician by catching masu isn’t superstition, it’s fact. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

The speaker was a middle-aged man who looked between thirty and forty years old.

His unkempt hair and beard gave an impression of poor grooming, but in contrast, his eyes were strangely clear.

“Uncle Midan! You’re alive!”

“Did you think I’d be dead? I told you. I won’t die before becoming a magician.”

“Sorry, Miss Rena. Our captain is always so rude.”

Three men approached behind the man called Midan.

Armed with long spears, bows, and hammers that looked capable of demolishing buildings, they were all large and muscular.

When Turan brushed off the hand on his shoulder, the man flinched back.

“Oops, excuse me.”

“It’s fine. But could I hear more about what you said earlier?”

“Hm? Which part?”

“About becoming a magician by catching masu.”

“Oh, so you’re interested in that too, young friend?”

Pleased by Turan’s interest, Midan grinned and explained.

Magicians grow stronger by killing masu and taking their power, and by the same principle, ordinary people can become magicians by killing masu and gaining their power.

He said he had seen several magicians who had gained power this way.

“That’s why the four of us hunt masu to become magicians.”

“We’ve already caught three!”

“Not much longer now.”

Midan’s subordinates – who seemed to call themselves sworn brothers – added their comments.

Turan was shocked to hear they had caught three masu.

The only masu he had seen had enough power to easily tear apart dozens of ordinary humans.

“Three of them – does that mean one of you has already become a magician?”

As soon as Turan finished speaking, everyone on the first floor of the inn burst out laughing.

“No way! This city only has four magicians – the lord and his three knights.”

“If just one of us became a magician, it would be easier to help the other brothers.”

“Actually, we nearly died several times catching those ones.”

Only four magicians in a city that must have at least a thousand people?

He could somewhat understand why Keorn had complained about the shortage of magicians in the world.

Then, Midan glanced at Turan’s bag and asked.

“So you hunt masu too? Your equipment seems too poor for that, don’t you have weapons?”

“Weapons?”

Turan took out the sheepskin sling from his pocket, thinking they would mock it.

It would look quite shabby compared to their metal armaments.

However, contrary to expectations, the masu hunters showed quite positive reactions.

“Oh, you use this to throw stones?”

“Looking at the wear, it’s been well used.”

“What size stones do you use?”

“About egg-sized ones.”

“That should be enough to crack the skulls of masu that transformed from rabbits or foxes.”

From their conversation, it seemed they weren’t targeting masu from predators like the leopard Turan had caught.

They only hunted masu from herbivores or relatively low-tier animals – ones that humans could defeat barehanded as normal animals.

Of course, even such creatures could instantly kill ordinary people depending on their innate abilities.

“Would you like to hunt with us? We’ve been wanting another ranged fighter.”

“No, thank you.”

Turan rejected his offer without hesitation.

He had no intention of openly revealing he was a magician, and his targets weren’t the insignificant level of masu they were after anyway.

Fortunately, Midan didn’t persist and backed off expressing regret.

“Tch, that’s too bad. Let us know if you change your mind.”

After chatting a bit more, Turan got the room key from the serving girl and went up to the second floor.

Lying on the bed trying to sleep, he could hear the masu hunters talking through the floorboards from the first floor.

[Big brother Midan, why did you try to recruit that kid? Honestly, he didn’t seem like he’d be much help.]

[Right. He looked so weak he’d wet himself if we scared him.]

Midan’s subordinates – sworn brothers were badmouthing Turan with seemingly mocking attitudes.

Despite acting so friendly downstairs earlier.

Having experienced such two-faced behavior enough from the villagers, it didn’t hurt his feelings.

He just sighed and let it pass, thinking this was just how people were.

Shortly after, Midan’s voice could be heard responding.

[Sigh, just seeing him reminded me of my younger days. With just that thing alone, wandering outside, even several lives wouldn’t be enough.]

[Big brother is just too kind-hearted.]

[Who says I’m not?]

Listening quietly to their conversation, Turan closed his eyes.

Indeed, there were both good and bad people in the world.

* * *

The next morning, after eating breakfast of dark bread and soup provided by the inn, Turan went to the city hall.

Located in the center of the city, the city hall was a four-story building full of citizens who had come for various business.

Only after pushing past an old man and woman arguing about building rental issues could he find the official in charge of bounties.

“What do you want?”

When Turan said he came looking for bounty-marked masu, the middle-aged official looked at him like he was looking at a pathetic good-for-nothing.

If he revealed he was a magician, the man would probably prostrate himself right there, but he didn’t.

If he pretended to be a mere knight, the city lord might try to recruit him for work as he had feared in the past, and if he revealed himself as a noble-class magician, he would waste time receiving all sorts of hospitality as an honored guest.

Wasn’t it considered rude to casually refuse hospitality between nobles, as it was an important courtesy?

The conclusion was that it would be best to quickly catch whatever masu he could find nearby and leave.

Though he probably didn’t need to risk his life hiding his identity.

“No taking it out, look and return it.”

Shortly after, the paper the official handed over contained descriptions of masu appearances, sizes, characteristics, sighting locations, and bounty amounts.

Weak and harmless masu mostly required live capture for bounties, while only those hostile and aggressive toward humans could be killed and their corpses brought in.

The reason was that weak masu were less mutated so their corpses were indistinguishable from normal animals, and there were many who tried to collect bounties by catching ordinary animals.

“One thing to note is that even if you accidentally kill a masu, don’t abandon it but bring it to the city. If the knights don’t disperse the magic power, it becomes a dangerous revenant. Abandoning a masu corpse is punishable by death under city law, so keep that in mind.”

“Understood.”

Having already experienced how terrifying it could be to leave a masu corpse, Turan took the official’s warning seriously and engraved it deeply.

“But some of these seem too dangerous for ordinary people to catch – don’t the knights come to catch these?”

The official answered as if seeing something quite strange.

“Do they look that free to you? A knight’s role is maintaining city security and preventing enemy invasion. Hunting masu is for vagabonds like you.”

At those words, Turan looked down at the paper he was holding.

Blade Crow.

A crow with some feathers as hard and sharp as blades, able to deflect arrows by swinging them and attack people by dropping feathers from high places.

Has a habit of carrying off dogs and children from the city outskirts to eat, then scattering the remains…

If magicians were protectors of humans, they should immediately go catch such creatures first, but it seemed there weren’t many who found pride in protecting humans.

With somewhat bitter feelings, Turan left the city hall building and headed toward the city’s edge.

As buildings gradually decreased and finally left the city area completely, familiar wilderness greeted him.

‘Shall we begin?’

After confirming there were no people around, Turan recalled the masu he had seen at city hall earlier.

Blade Crow, a man-eating masu that preys on children…

“Crow search.”

The moment he cast the spell, hundreds of different sounds reached his ears.

Sounds of feathers rubbing, wing flapping, and pecking at things.

“Ugh.”

Due to too many sounds coming from all directions, Turan frowned and canceled the magic.

The search spell had lost discrimination due to too many crows around the city.

‘This method won’t work.’

How should he search for just the masu?

A crow with magic power?

He tried but it wouldn’t activate at all – it seemed magic power possession couldn’t be used as a search condition.

Next he tried the condition of crows that eat humans, but this time too many targets were caught.

Probably including ones that had pecked at corpses.

“This is difficult…”

He rarely had such problems in the Hisaril hills where animals were scarce.

To find lost sheep, he just had to search for sheep and find the lone ones, and for wolves, at most one or two packs would be detected.

After pondering for a while, Turan had a sudden realization and used magic.

‘Crows larger than children.’

Though masu were stronger than normal animals, they would need basic size to carry off children.

As expected, he heard the rustling of feathers from just one crow.

Plus a faint smell of human blood.

“Found it.”

Though nothing was visible looking in the direction of the sound due to obstacles, once detected it wouldn’t escape.

A distance that would take an ordinary person at least 10 minutes running.

But for a noble-class magician running at full speed, 3-4 minutes was enough.

When the forest where the target lived came into view, Turan used another magic.

Not the complete concealment unique to the Jahar bloodline, but ordinary invisibility magic that just made him unseen.

Complete concealment magic consumed too much magic power to use comfortably yet, and from experience he knew birds’ hearing wasn’t that sharp.

Reaching the huge tree that would need three people with arms spread to encircle it where the crow masu stayed, Turan immediately rose up using flight magic.

‘It’s big…’

The crow masu was over a meter tall just sitting.

Its folded wings were sharp like blades as its name suggested, and traces of blood not yet gone could be glimpsed on its sharp beak.

Throughout the nest it perched on were scattered bones of various animals, and occasionally what appeared to be human bones.

As expected, it was busy grooming its feathers, completely unaware of Turan’s presence.

‘Now how should I catch this one.’

The simplest would be to immediately blow its head off with a stone throw, but he wanted to test more varied magic against it.

If he got too used to stone throwing just because it was easy, he would have no countermeasures when facing opponents immune to physical projectiles.

Keorn had also taught to prepare various response methods if possible.

Looking up at the sky, there were quite a few clouds – perfect conditions for trying one particular magic.

A technique he had only learned in theory but never used due to unsuitable conditions in the Hisaril hills.

Turan raised his finger to the sky a bit away from the nest, recalling the memory.

Several years ago, on a rare stormy day in the rarely rainy Hisaril hills.

The massive pillar of light connecting heaven and earth with world-shattering thunder.

‘Come.’

With a strong wish, his internal magic power was suddenly drained, and shortly after, low thunder rumbled between the clouds.

The crow masu looked up at the sky as if sensing something unusual, but it was already too late to escape.

Lightning faster than sound struck the bird’s nest.

[Kaaaaaak—!!!]

The crow screamed and tried to flee from the sudden lightning strike above its head.

But its proud blade feathers had all burned away leaving only the metal-tempered parts fallen off, so it had no way to fly.

The crow that fell helplessly to the ground writhed a few times before stopping movement.

After carefully checking for about a minute to see if it would move again, Turan came down to the ground and absorbed its magic power.