Shepherd Wizard (Novel) - Chapter 75

Chapter 75

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As Turan laid down the unconscious Meisa, he clicked his tongue at how pitifully weak her resistance had been.

Considering magical power was the biggest factor in a mage’s physical abilities, having top-tier noble level magical power yet being this weak meant her body was in terrible condition.

‘Well, she barely weighs a quarter of what I do.’

He guessed that in a fistfight, she might give a decent match to how he was back when herding sheep in the Hisaril Hills.

In this state, she not only couldn’t use her full power, but even her lifespan couldn’t be guaranteed.

Wanting to somehow restore her health, Turan opened her mouth and inserted the prepared tube.

There was no need to worry about its hard, rough surface causing wounds to her throat or internal organs.

After all, if noble skin couldn’t even be pierced by needles, internal organs wouldn’t be much different.

Rather, he had to reinforce the tube with magical power as it was getting crushed by the esophageal sphincter muscles.

‘Is this enough? No, a bit deeper- there.’

After blowing air into the tube to check its flow, Turan confirmed the end had reached her stomach and used liquid manipulation magic to pour in the nutritional porridge.

The amount was about two ladles of soup.

He deliberately reduced the amount, remembering seeing people who had suffered long-term starvation die from eating too quickly back in Kalamaf.

Even though nobles’ bodies were sturdier than commoners’, it seemed better to avoid situations that could cause problems.

After finishing the feeding, Turan pulled out the inserted tube and gathered moisture from the air to create water droplets.

This would be more effective than hitting or shaking her to wake her up.

“Mmm…”

Just then, Meisa’s eyes flickered open with a small groan.

As Turan dispersed the water droplets gathered in his hand, she struggled to sit up.

“…Is it over?”

“Yes.”

After briefly holding her head from dizziness, Meisa moved her tongue around trying to wash away the metallic taste in her mouth.

Fortunately, she felt none of the nausea that usually came immediately after eating.

Perhaps because it didn’t feel like she had actually eaten anything.

“I never thought it would be this simple…”

“You’ll probably recover quickly after doing this a few more times. Since we can’t do this forever, you’ll need to overcome it yourself in the long term.”

“I’ll try my best.”

Though she wasn’t confident she could do it, Meisa answered thus while putting her magical devices back on.

Afterwards, they completely erased all traces from the bakery before separating to return to their respective places.

Returning to her usual empty mansion, Meisa collapsed onto the dusty bed.

‘My body… feels hot.’

She felt a strange vitality coursing through her usually lethargic body, making it burn all over.

This was happening because her body, starved for ten years, was now greedily breaking down food to create energy.

The next day, Meisa headed to the main house’s gate earlier than usual.

The guards standing watch as usual were startled by the sudden appearance of the heir and stood at attention.

“M-miss! What brings you here…”

“Just wanted some fresh air.”

Though Arabion’s power holders looked down on and persecuted Meisa, she was still officially the family’s only heir.

No one dared demand entry passes or such things, so she immediately passed through the checkpoint without any noble or knight escorts and flew up into the vast sky.

Perhaps because her physical condition was better than usual, her flying speed seemed faster than normal too.

When she returned after enjoying freedom flying around for several hours, the family interior was naturally half turned upside down.

“What were you thinking, Meisa! For an heir to act so recklessly! Do you know how many people had to drop their work to gather because of you?”

Kadram and other family executives all rushed out to surround Meisa and interrogate her.

It was an intimidating atmosphere that would make ordinary people wet themselves, but she faced them without even flinching an eyebrow.

“I just went for a walk because I felt stuffy. Do you and others ask permission from anyone when you go out?”

“You need to be aware of your position! What if Zahar assassins were to attack-”

“Are you worried their family head might come all the way to the Dakein Plains? If not that, there shouldn’t be any problems. Besides, weren’t you the one who said I was being too paranoid before, Uncle?”

“That was when you were young.”

“Anyway, I’ll continue going out and coming back as I please, so don’t worry about it.”

Meisa shot back before returning to her mansion without even waiting for a response.

Kadram and the other Middle-aged faction nobles could only mutter unpleasantly among themselves without further scolding her.

Because despite being under their authority, she was still the heir after all.

Back at the mansion, the elderly maids who had apparently already been scolded rushed to her trying to say something, but Meisa dismissed them with a light wave of her hand before entering her bedroom to sleep.

Several hours later around dawn, after confirming no one was around, she left the mansion.

She entered the bakery where she had met before and lightly snapped her fingers, but nothing happened.

‘…Is Leto nearby?’

As agreed three nights ago, Turan would only reveal himself when certain Leto wasn’t around.

Him not appearing now meant either he couldn’t see through her stealth abilities or Leto was hiding nearby watching.

After checking several more places, Meisa returned to her mansion without success and tried to sleep.

Perhaps because her intestines had been activated from consuming food once, a hunger that felt like it would pierce her stomach tormented her all night.

On the second day, several relatively low-ranking Arabion nobles greeted Meisa as she headed to the checkpoint like yesterday.

Perhaps thinking if they couldn’t stop her from going out, they should at least keep her under surveillance.

Meisa didn’t particularly try to shake off those who said they would accompany her walk.

Rather, she exhausted them thoroughly by flying at even faster speeds as if mocking them.

After returning thus and trying to sleep, she left her bedroom at dawn and wandered around unpopulated areas but couldn’t meet Turan this time either… After two more such days passed and she was starting to feel anxious, Turan finally revealed himself before her as she was wandering around the knights’ training grounds reeking of sweat.

“Turan!”

“Leto was following you for three days straight.”

“You could detect her?”

“Yes, fortunately.”

Turan nodded while touching the Imitator holy relic.

These past few days, he had hidden in Meisa’s mansion watching the interior without even sleeping.

Thanks to this, he could see Leto entering Meisa’s room while hidden and searching every corner, and even secretly pursuing her when she left the house at night.

As a bonus, he learned that this Imitator holy relic could even see through Zahar’s stealth.

Only after watching Leto spy for three days straight and confirming she stopped pursuit after seeing Meisa just wander around meaninglessly did he reveal himself.

“…I couldn’t sense her at all.”

“That’s natural. So, do you think there will be any issues with the walks?”

“Yes. They seem content to just let me do it for stress relief.”

Though Meisa could act as heir externally, even she had to obey the absolute monarch that was Family Head Badal.

If he ordered her not to go out, she would have to comply.

But he hadn’t actively responded to this sudden outing.

Only the family executives, the ‘Middle-aged faction’ nobles as Turan had named them, were making noise on their own.

They had somewhat expected this would happen.

According to what Turan had confirmed while investigating internal documents from various studies, the family head had stayed holed up in his residence for decades, leaving almost all work to his relatives.

Recently he had only left his residence for the war with Zahar and to send off the dark elf subjugation unit.

“I was thinking of searching his residence if he came out himself, but…”

One of the plans had been to take advantage if the family head came out personally to scold Meisa, but it seemed they would have to give up on that.

After briefly discussing thus, Turan knocked Meisa unconscious and fed her like three days ago.

The same routine repeated for several days.

Walking, sleeping, and food injection.

On the fourth night, Turan spoke to Meisa after she woke up from unconsciousness.

“Let’s escape tomorrow.”

“Already?”

“If we wait longer, others will grow suspicious. You’re gaining weight faster than I expected.”

These past few days, Meisa’s body had undergone changes that could be called transformative.

The sunken areas around her eyes had filled with flesh, her wrinkled skin had smoothed out, and her stick-like body had thickened.

Though still barely noticeable now, in a few more days anyone would be able to see these changes.

“Let’s meet west of Morgen City at noon tomorrow. If I’m not there an hour after noon, return. It means something went wrong.”

One advantage of having tracking abilities was not needing to specify exact meeting locations.

At dawn on escape day, Turan woke up immediately and began executing the operation.

First was infiltrating the mansions of Kadram and other Middle-aged faction nobles to secure documents of their corruption.

For this, he actively used the mask’s disguise ability rather than stealth.

This was possible thanks to having observed the internal situations through multiple entries and exits over the past few days.

“Hm? Aren’t you Bek? Didn’t you just leave?”

“The master gave me another task.”

Turan casually entered and exited studies while disguised as servants working at each mansion.

It took two hours to secure all the documents.

Even this would have taken less than half the time if he hadn’t needed to walk between mansions like a commoner.

After securing documents from all fifteen people, Turan took out the stored hair and activated tracking magic.

This was to pursue the Zahar noble Leto.

‘Where… ah good, she just left her residence. Saved me the trouble of waiting.’

As the family head’s direct maid she naturally stayed in his residence, but she would go out several times a day for errands and other duties.

Capturing her had actually been the biggest variable in this plan.

If she happened to stay cooped up in the family head’s residence today with no reason to go out, they wouldn’t be able to do anything.

In that case they would have had to return the documents and postpone the escape plan to tomorrow.

Disguised as an ordinary gardener, Turan followed the tracking magic across the main house to arrive at a mansion.

‘This is…’

[Sirel Arabion] was written large beside the mansion’s main gate.

Meisa’s half-brother born to the woman from House Nagin.

Leto seemed to be talking with someone inside his mansion.

‘This guy didn’t have anything special when I investigated before.’

His study only had ordinary documents, and while he maintained proper relations with the Middle-aged faction as a relative, he didn’t particularly participate with them.

But Meisa hated him terribly.

Because Sirel’s mother was the family head’s partner, Anieta Nagin.

‘After Meisa’s mother and brother died… that woman had mocked her.’

That was also why Meisa had sent a letter calling her half-brother Renod a murderer right after the incident.

It was essentially the same as revealing she knew House Nagin was behind it, even if she didn’t know the exact circumstances.

In fact, one of the still unsolved mysteries was the alliance between the Middle-aged faction and House Nagin.

If the family head was one of the gods, having a partner shouldn’t matter much.

While it could just be an excuse to torment Meisa, Turan privately suspected there must be some related issue within House Nagin as well.

Or conversely, they might be trying to exert influence over House Nagin through this.

While lost in thought, he saw Leto finishing her conversation and leaving the mansion.

Having prepared his disguise in advance, Turan immediately approached and called out to her.

“Leto.”

Startled by Turan’s call, Leto’s eyes widened before she smiled and bowed her head.

“Yes, Lord Kadram! What brings you here-”

“Come with me. I have a task for you.”

Turan couldn’t be certain if he had perfectly copied Kadram’s appearance or if there was any awkwardness in his voice.

Though Meisa had said it was identical from beside him, they hadn’t directly compared and confirmed.

But Leto followed without showing any suspicion.

He had prepared an excuse for what task he would give if she asked, but befitting a well-trained assassin, she didn’t even question that… Entering Kadram’s mansion, the elderly butler asked with a puzzled expression:

“Master? Isn’t it time for your daily meeting…”

“I forgot something I need.”

A look of confusion crossed the butler’s face at Turan’s words.

Perhaps the disguise was too crude to fool someone who had known him long.

But the butler seemed to dismiss his instincts as oversensitive, simply bowing his head without further comment.

Internally sighing in relief, Turan led her toward the mansion’s basement.

“Um, Lord Kadram? Why are we…”

Having never been guided to the basement despite visiting the mansion before, an odd unease finally crossed Leto’s face.

Perhaps she thought Kadram wanted her body?

Instead of answering, he silently continued walking, and after brief hesitation she chose to obey.

In the dark basement with no lights.

When Leto habitually closed the door like a trained maid, the barrier that had been set up inside activated.

“Ugh…!?”

Before coming to find Leto, Turan had used up one person’s worth of Barrier bloodline power stored in the Imitator holy relic.

The effect of the barrier thus installed was to slow and seal the target’s movements.

Though the startled Leto struggled to pull out several hidden weapons from her chest, her movements were unbearably slow.

Turan leisurely caught her hand to take away the weapons before thoroughly binding her body with the magical power suppressing chains that had been used on Solif before.

Feeling magical power starting to drain from her whole body, Leto frantically cried out:

“L-Lord Kadram? What is this-!”

Instead of answering her words, Turan immediately drove his fist into her face.