Shepherd Wizard (Novel) - Chapter 74
Chapter 74
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Discord
In the bakery with no lights, only moonlight shining through.
Turan explained to Meisa how he had obtained such materials and why he had investigated them.
This naturally led to mentioning his past, his abilities, his companions, and Solif’s existence.
Perhaps because this was his third time explaining it, he felt he could present the story more coherently than before.
He concluded by explaining the various secrets he had discovered during his travels and the hypotheses drawn from them.
After finally demonstrating both Zahar and Arabion bloodline abilities as proof, Meisa, who had been listening silently, spoke up.
Her words were surprisingly sharp criticism.
“There are many logical leaps, and the evidence is lacking.”
“That’s correct.”
Turan nodded readily in agreement.
So far, he had only gathered several pieces of indirect evidence, but no concrete physical proof about the existence of gods or those who were persecuting Meisa.
If he hadn’t met the librarian directly and accessed related information, or experienced it firsthand in the labyrinth, it could have been dismissed as just baseless conspiracy theories.
“But I think your life experience itself until now serves as evidence.”
A woman born into what should have been this world’s most noble position as a great house’s heir, yet unreasonably persecuted.
Turan’s hypothesis clearly explained how she had come to live such a miserable life.
“True. So I’ll believe it. Or perhaps I should say I want to believe it.”
Want to believe – that was likely Meisa’s true feeling.
That way she could say she wasn’t insane, that this cursed family was the problem.
After taking several breaths to compose herself, she looked at Turan and asked:
“So, what should I do now?”
“First, we need to prepare for escape.”
Unlike Baraha’s relatively young head, Arabion’s head was already old enough that death within a few years wouldn’t be strange.
No matter how powerful a mage she was, since she couldn’t reject the touch of the family head who might be a divine being, they needed to escape while they had the chance.
“Escape…”
Turan could hear fear and learned helplessness in her muttering voice.
Though Meisa was a great mage with few equals besides great house heads, separately she was just an immature adult who had lived her whole life persecuted within the family’s walls.
In fact, considering she was only about twenty-two years old, she was barely more than a child by noble standards.
Of course, Turan thinking this was even younger, but still.
At that moment, fear crossed her thin face as she recalled something.
“If I escape, won’t they retaliate against my aunt’s side?”
It was well known that Meisa cherished her maternal family House Berk, so it was quite predictable they might be persecuted as the price of her escape.
Since he had considered this too, Turan immediately offered his prepared answer.
“They might. That’s why after escaping, I plan to spread some of these documents we’ve obtained among the vassal houses.”
Arabion had 17 total vassal houses in and around the Dakein Plains.
Though three or four houses were practically allied with the Middle-aged faction, the rest maintained relatively loose lord-vassal relationships.
In that situation, what if they delivered evidence of Arabion main house officials’ corruption in Meisa’s name?
“They’ll find it difficult to persecute House Berk for a while at least. They’ll lack justification.”
If House Berk was persecuted after Meisa exposed corruption among family officials, other vassal houses would see this as an unreasonable act of violence by the lord’s house.
Moreover, not only the Youth faction that was usually suppressed, but also some upright Elder faction nobles would likely find such a situation distasteful.
No matter how much power the Middle-aged faction held as Arabion’s core backed by the family head, forcefully suppressing all of them would clearly cut the family’s strength in half.
Since there was no guarantee Meisa would return even if they persecuted House Berk, the side effects were too great for what would essentially be just venting anger.
“Ah…”
“Of course, the corruption documents’ influence will weaken after decades, but by then we need to find a way to face the family head. Or hope he dies of old age.”
The combination of Meisa, Solif and Turan could more than handle hunting most mythical beasts.
While such beings born near great houses’ territories were usually hunted down quickly, some specimens likely still survived in places untouched by humans, from seas to remote regions.
Of course, searching every corner of the vast world would take considerable time, but with luck, they might gather enough power to face multiple great houses within ten or so years.
This was realistically the best option available in their current situation.
After all, Meisa couldn’t just wait to become a sacrifice for House Berk’s sake.
After several minutes of silence, Meisa nodded with difficulty.
“…Alright. I’ll be in your care from now on, Turan.”
And so, Turan gained another companion.
* * *
After sorting out the general discussion, they began planning concrete escape details.
“First, just getting out shouldn’t be too difficult. Since you always wear your magical devices, you can just insist you want to take a walk and leave. Though we’ll need to deal with that woman first.”
“You mean Leto?”
“Yes.”
Leto, the Zahar noble following Arabion’s nobles.
Fleeing without dealing with her would obviously lead to quick pursuit.
While Turan could remove her traces inside the mansion, he couldn’t prevent her from using other means to track them.
“From searching this place, she seems to be the only noble with Zahar bloodline in Arabion, so eliminating her should buy us enough escape time. Are you close with her?”
Though he couldn’t check often while raiding nobles these past few days, whenever he checked Meisa’s mansion, he sensed Leto visiting.
Given she even brought fairy tales personally, there might be some friendship between them.
To Turan’s question, Meisa shook her head in denial.
“To be honest, I did feel some closeness to her. But not anymore.”… She explained that while deeply isolated, she had secretly appreciated Leto who remained friendly and wasn’t replaced despite frequent contact, though she deliberately acted cold fearing replacement if they became too close.
Meanwhile, she had found comfort occasionally mentioning how her mother used to read these fairy tales while subtly interacting.
“It’s laughable. To secretly cherish the woman who killed my family and tormented me…”
Meisa recited what she had endured, like someone insane rambling.
Windows suddenly shattering without warning while resting comfortably, clothes left inside getting shredded when she looked away briefly, precious family portraits she kept close to her heart disappearing.
Whenever such things happened, she reported to family members, mainly adults, but they just treated it as oversensitivity.
At first she would spray light and attack magic whenever it happened, but later she just ignored it.
After all, any direct attacks could be sufficiently handled by the defensive magical devices she wore.
She had decided to treat it like living with some kind of invisible ghost.
Hearing the concrete details of what documents dryly described as “providing appropriate stimulation,” Turan felt sympathy.
An ordinary person would surely have gone mad long ago unable to handle such pressure.
“So, do whatever you want with that woman. No, I hope she dies miserably and horribly.”
She said she might have trouble controlling her emotions when meeting before escape, as she cried again.
Presumably the slight intimacy she had felt internally had transformed into betrayal and hostility dozens of times stronger.
Thanks to this, Turan could plan to capture and torture Leto if needed without moral qualms.
“Then I’ll handle that woman. By the way, does Arabion have any other tracking magical devices? The kind that can pursue targets from far away?”
The magical device Meisa used before was good for detecting hidden opponents nearby, useful for fighting Zahar nobles, but not for long-distance tracking.
Given how persistently they had tracked the dark elves, they surely had devices for that purpose too.
As expected, Meisa nodded in confirmation.
“Yes. I returned what I was using to the main house, and there’s an astrological magical device that uses constellations, probably still with Uncle Kadram… that b*st*rd.”
Though calling her uncle a b*st*rd essentially insulted her own grandfather, Turan didn’t mention this.
In fact, his father’s Zahar relatives probably weren’t particularly admirable people either.
“I’ve already broken into that house, so I can steal it right before escape.”
“Having someone with Zahar bloodline on our side is really convenient. You can just steal whatever we need.”
Having gained some peace of mind, Meisa joked and laughed with eyes red from crying.
Afterwards, they discussed several problems and ways to solve them, resulting in somewhat comical conclusions.
While Meisa would just escape with nothing but herself, Turan would have to run around handling all the cleanup.
“…Can you really do all this alone? Maybe I should help somehow-”
“I can handle it. Let’s focus on your escape first, Meisa. Since suddenly going for a walk would be suspicious, start taking walks daily from tomorrow. People tend to become desensitized when something repeats.”
“Make it seem routine, you mean.”
“Yes. And we need to address your health condition soon too. At this rate you might collapse not long after escaping.”
“Hmm…”
Her face darkened slightly, apparently not wanting to discuss this topic.
But her current physical condition was that serious.
Sleeping practically unconscious for thirteen to fourteen hours daily and getting dizzy from slightly heavy magic use – even a powerful mage would struggle to escape in such condition.
So Turan brought up a topic he had been holding back.
“Is your food rejection related to your deceased family?”
“…Yes.”
Meisa just answered that much before firmly closing her mouth.
She apparently didn’t want to mention specifically what had happened.
Since it wasn’t urgent enough to force her to speak now, Turan naturally moved on.
“It must be difficult to resolve alone?”
“Yes, I think so…”
Meisa hadn’t completely avoided trying to fix this eating disorder.
Though she lied about wanting to keep her body light to avoid showing weakness, she had secretly tried stealing and eating all kinds of delicious food to somehow provide nutrition.
But whenever she swallowed something, she saw her mother and brother’s faces and was overwhelmed by unbearable nausea.
Eventually her desperate solution was repeatedly eating and vomiting like earlier.
That way at least a tiny amount of food would enter her body and slightly improve her health.
Newly realizing she had shown such behavior earlier, Meisa turned away feeling embarrassed.
Knowing showing similar emotion would only make her more ashamed, Turan deliberately maintained a mechanical attitude.
“Then let me help you.”
“How?”
“I’ll feed you directly.”
Meisa momentarily lost words and stared at Turan.
Direct feeding – wasn’t this something from decadent romance novels of the old empire era?
Directly transferring food mouth to mouth…
At first she wondered if she should feel insulted, but surprisingly, Turan’s face showed not the slightest trace of personal feelings.
“W-will that method help? I’m not sure…”
In the end, Meisa’s response was awkward even by her own assessment.
Realizing his words could be misinterpreted, Turan clarified:
“I’ll knock you unconscious, then push liquid made from ground food directly into your throat with a tube. Even if you wake up and vomit later, some will remain in your body.”
“Ah.”
She had certainly never tried such a method before.
Or rather, she couldn’t try it.
She couldn’t trust anyone in the family, and she had to act strong in front of the House Berk people she did trust… While she was dumbfounded by this almost forceful method, Turan took out emergency rations stored in his large-capacity pocket.
Dried bean powder, jerky, vegetables…
Though he lacked complex nutritional knowledge about carbohydrates or proteins, he had common sense that eating various foods was healthy.
The nutritional porridge made by grinding and mixing all these with water looked unappetizing, but that was fine since it would be pushed directly into her stomach.
Finally, he found a thin rod nearby and shaped it using heating and telekinesis magic, completing a metal tube to push food into her stomach.
“It’s ready.”
“But how should I faint? By depleting all magical power like last time?”
“That’s not good. It would drain your endurance when you’re barely maintaining health with magical power. Remove your defensive magical devices and I’ll knock you out cleanly.”
Showing a defenseless state and even fainting in front of another person.
Though it was a terrifyingly difficult request, after brief hesitation Meisa went to a corner and removed her defensive magical devices.
“Done.”
“I’ll wake you right after it’s finished.”
After reassuring her thus, Turan went behind her and wrapped his arm around her thin neck.
Who would have thought the restraining techniques learned from Haram would be useful like this?
Fortunately, unlike Haram’s muscle-packed tree trunk of a neck, Meisa’s neck was so thin her blood vessels protruded, making it easy to apply the technique.
Wasn’t blocking these vessels the key to quick unconsciousness?
“Urk-”
After about ten seconds of carefully controlling force on her thin neck.
Meisa’s body, which had been instinctively struggling, went limp.