Shepherd Wizard (Novel) - Chapter 77
Chapter 77
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Discord
Turan recalled Keorn, the old knight who had lost his entire family and friends to war.
When he learned that the family Keorn had once taken such immense pride in had betrayed him in a horrific manner, a bitter taste filled Turan’s mouth.
No, if you thought about it, the tens of thousands of people who had met direct or indirect deaths due to the war between the two families were all victims in their own right.
While the sheepdogs and young shepherds ignorantly bit and fought one another, the old shepherds in the background shook hands and whispered to each other…
If it were up to him, Turan would have wanted to wipe out the leadership of both families entirely, but that wasn’t possible.
No matter how powerful a mage Turan was now, compared to the heads of great families—who were human—he was, at best, a mere wildcat.
Even that was a tremendous improvement compared to his past, when he had been nothing more than a bug or something even lower.
Suppressing the rage boiling within him, Turan spoke quietly to Leto, who was slumped on the ground.
“Alright, if you answer my questions obediently, I’ll let you meet Lord Talis. Who gave you orders, and in what way? Whose instructions did you follow in Arabion?”
At Turan’s words, Leto looked at him with a flustered expression.
“No, wait… didn’t you hear me? This is the will of the higher-ups! You dare to interrogate me?”
“Answer the question.”
Ignoring his warning, Turan’s demeanor made Leto glance around before gritting her teeth.
The venom in her eyes was the same as before.
“…Lord Talis, let me see Lord Talis! If it’s in front of him, I can tell you everything—”
Turan reached out, clamping Leto’s mouth shut with one hand while lightly pinching her forearm with the other.
A piece of flesh tore off, and a horrific scream echoed from within her blocked mouth.
“I’ll ask again. From the Zahar family—”
“You crazy bastard!”
Instead of reacting to the insult hurled at him, Turan silenced her again and ripped another chunk of flesh from her forearm.
At the sight, not only Solif but even Meisa—who had been glaring with resentment moments ago—turned pale.
Both were heirs of great families and had killed in combat before, but seeing a defenseless human tortured so thoroughly was a first for them.
Unlike the two, however, Turan felt no emotional disturbance while conducting his first act of torture.
To him, Leto was nothing more than a pawn of those old shepherds, a villain who had toyed with the innocent.
The moment he defined her as an enemy—a wolf outside the fold—he could do anything without hesitation.
Of course, a mage might be different, but Leto, now reduced to an ordinary human, couldn’t endure such brutal torture for long.
She soon began to fade from pain and blood loss, but Turan wouldn’t even allow her that escape.
Baraha’s healing potion artifact.
It was less effective on the bodies of high-ranking nobles, but with three top-tier nobles pouring their magic into it, the lack of efficiency could be compensated.
How many times did he force the potion into the resisting Leto’s mouth to heal her, only to break her again?
Unable to bear the sight any longer, Solif was the first to speak, saying, “I’ll keep watch outside,” before stepping out of the ravine.
Even he, who had calmly slaughtered hundreds of pirates, found the scene too gruesome to stomach.
With the sound of Bije hopping playfully on the dirt as background noise, Turan methodically honed his torture skills through Leto.
With his keen sense of smell and sharp intellect, he analyzed the scent of pain she exuded, learning which spots and methods caused her the most agony.
By the time even Meisa, who had been watching from behind, showed signs of exhaustion on her face, Leto finally muttered with hollow eyes.
“I’ll talk, no, I’ll talk… please, please stop… just kill me instead…”
Compared to her earlier act of sobbing and shouting, she was now eerily calm.
Turan brought his nose to her throat, inhaling deeply.
Amid the thick stench of blood, the scents of fear, despair, and resignation wafted through.
—
According to Leto’s half-broken confession, the one who had directly dispatched her to Arabion was Rahman, a cousin of the Zahar family head and one of the candidates for succession.
Her orders were to faithfully carry out the instructions of Kardram Arabion and six other key figures in Arabion.
Since it was a secret mission, no one in Zahar except Rahman knew of it, and in Arabion, only those six and their direct subordinates were aware of her true identity.
Surprisingly, the head of Arabion was not among those six, and Leto didn’t know whether he was aware of the espionage or not.
The six who knew her identity treated her strictly as a maid in the presence of the family head, and he, in turn, didn’t give her any special treatment.
“Have you ever searched the head’s quarters? With stealth abilities, it wouldn’t have been difficult.”
“Not really… I didn’t see the point. Knowing unnecessary things just seemed risky…”
Leto confessed that she mechanically carried out her assigned tasks without digging deeper into those who gave her orders.
To Turan, it was an absurdly passive attitude, but that was how most people in the world operated.
Confirming she wasn’t lying when she said she only did her assigned tasks even in the head’s quarters, Turan shifted the topic to the head himself.
“What kind of person was the head?”
“Just… like an old man. So worn out he had no interest in worldly affairs…”
Meisa, listening nearby, nodded unconsciously.
It seemed she had felt something similar about her own father.
Was the head truly orchestrating everything from behind while feigning ignorance, or was he genuinely an apathetic figure of absolute power?
Given Meisa’s upbringing, the former seemed more likely, but the latter couldn’t be entirely ruled out.
As hypotheses swirled in his mind, Turan next asked how she had managed to operate as a spy for so long without being discovered.
A maid who didn’t age would naturally arouse suspicion of being a mage, wouldn’t she?
The solution to that problem was astonishingly simple.
When she infiltrated fifteen years ago, she pretended to be twenty, and over time, she gradually altered her makeup to appear older.
“And they believed that?”
“Yes…”
Turan splashed water on Leto’s face, now a mess of tears and blood, wiping away her makeup.
Indeed, unlike before when she looked to be in her early to mid-thirties, she now appeared to be in her mid-twenties.
To alter her face without an artifact—it was practically magic in itself.
Marveling briefly at this newfound fact, Turan pressed her further about the crimes she had committed.
Though already hinted at in the documents of the middle-aged nobles, hearing the details directly from the perpetrator was on another level.
As he pointed out specifics from the documents and added annotations, the topic of Meisa’s family came up.
“Those two—no, three people, to be exact—I poisoned them. I sprinkled it into their food when they went on a picnic near the city.”
“Poison?”
Turan frowned at the unexpected revelation.
It was common knowledge that poison didn’t work on mages, especially nobles.
A knight might die if they consumed enough poison to kill hundreds of ordinary people, but a noble could drink a bellyful of it and recover after a bout of diarrhea.
Unless it was a poison derived from the bloodline of the extinct night hunters from ancient times.
“Yes. I don’t know where it came from, but it was incredibly effective. Even though it was weak, it killed that noblewoman and even put Meisa… I mean, Lady Meisa, who had already built up considerable strength, in danger.”
At the mention of poisoning Meisa as well, Turan narrowed his brows.
It seemed that this was likely the direct cause of her eating disorder.
What puzzled him was why they would poison her, someone who should have become a divine vessel.
Even if it was weak, it was a potent enough toxin to kill Meisa’s noble mother.
They either knew she wouldn’t die, or they didn’t care if she died or was gravely injured.
“You don’t know the source of the poison, you’re sure?”
“Yes…”
He repeated the question persistently, checking for signs of deception, but she didn’t seem to be lying.
After confirming a few more details of her crimes, he finally ran out of questions.
“Well, it looks like we’ve squeezed everything out of her… Meisa, if you want revenge, I’ll step aside for you.”
“No, it’s fine.”
Surprisingly, Meisa’s face showed little hatred toward Leto as she replied.
“She already looks like an empty shell. And pain… I don’t have the confidence to inflict it as thoroughly as you did.”
Did watching Turan’s torture from the sidelines satisfy her need for vengeance?
Meisa raised her hand, charging a small bolt of lightning, and struck Leto down, ending her life.
Shortly after, Solif returned, and together with the three of them and one black eagle, they absorbed Leto’s magic and sent her soul away.
After erasing every last trace, an awkward silence fell until Solif spoke up.
“About the torture… doesn’t it bother you?”
“Not really. It had to be done anyway.”
At Turan’s response, Solif opened his mouth as if to say something, then shook his head.
“They say the nobles of the desert are ruthless, and it’s no lie… Well, fine. Being cruel to enemies is a necessary virtue. As long as you’re good to our side, that’s what matters.”
His muttering sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than anyone else.
Turan knew his disposition wasn’t exactly normal.
Most people couldn’t become this desensitized just by labeling someone an enemy.
That’s why, when Keorn had once called him a good person, Turan had inwardly disagreed.
After tidying up, Turan turned to Meisa, who had a slightly dazed expression.
“I suppose it’s time we part ways.”
“I suppose so.”
Unlike Meisa, who would flee to a distant location, Turan and Solif planned to return to the Berk estate.
They intended to distribute the documents they’d obtained to various vassal families to incite outrage and prevent unjust pressure from being exerted on them.
Even in the worst-case scenario where things didn’t work out, they’d have to help the Berk family escape.
“Before we go, it’d be good to arrange a food supply. It’ll be a while before we meet again.”
“Oh…”
Hearing Turan’s words, Meisa glanced at Solif with a slightly embarrassed expression.
“Food supply?”
“As I mentioned before, Lady Meisa struggles with food intake, so we’ve been helping her.”
“How?”
Instead of answering immediately, Turan glanced at Meisa.
He considered that she might feel ashamed of the process—knocking her out and inserting a tube into her throat to deliver food.
“Is it alright if I explain, Meisa? If I’m not around later, you might need to ask this guy for help.”
At Turan’s words, Meisa let out a small groan before nodding.
After explaining the method of knocking her out and feeding her through a tube into her stomach, Solif’s jaw dropped.
“…I take back what I said earlier. You really are a crazy b*at*rd.”
—
After one final feeding, Meisa rode a swing tied to Bije’s body and flew south.
Her destination was the hot spring region of the Shiraf wetlands.
If she could establish a friendly relationship with Aikul, the monkey king, under Bije’s mediation, no one in the area would dare touch her.
Besides, Lida, who frequented the place, wasn’t particularly belligerent, so there was little chance of conflict.
After secretly returning to the Berk estate, Turan informed Asiz of everything that had happened.
Asiz buried himself deep in his chair, shaking his head vigorously as if trying to endure the pressure.
“You really went and did it… So now it’s a game of nerve?”
“Pretty much.”
In a few days—or a few weeks at most—Arabion would learn that an unidentified accomplice had helped Meisa escape.
Turan figured he’d rank somewhere between third and fourth on the list of suspects for such a deed.
The top three would likely be Leto or other Zahar nobles.
His task now was to prove he wasn’t that accomplice while ensuring the Berk family didn’t face unfair retaliation.
In a way, it was a show of strength.
With Turan’s current power, it was entirely feasible, though pretending to be of the barrier mage bloodline added a constraint that made it less than straightforward.
“Can we hold out?”
“Absolutely.”
He had already anonymously sent evidence of Arabion nobles’ corruption to various vassal families via couriers.
If they all grew furious and Arabion tried to impose excessive disadvantages on the Berk family or wipe them out?
That would be impossible unless the head of Arabion himself marched in.
Without solid proof that Turan was the culprit, attempting such a move would be like cutting off their nose to spite their face.
A few days later, unexpectedly, the Arabion nobles didn’t invade even after Solif’s hand had fully healed.
Through Bije’s return, Turan confirmed Meisa had safely reached the hot spring region, and in the meantime, he became acquainted with Lua, a healer of the healing bloodline who had treated Solif.
Learning that Turan was the one funding Solif’s treatment, she proposed several plans to support the lives of commoners, and Turan readily provided the money.
He was pleased to see a shepherd caring well for the flock, and it doubled as hush money for treating Solif.
About a week later, the effects of the secretly distributed corruption documents began to show.
Several vassal families, enraged, proposed gathering in Morgen City to protest.
Naturally, Turan had anonymously sent a letter to the Berk family head, Midella, as well, so the Berk family joined in. Midella expressed delight when Turan and Solif offered to accompany them.
In a situation requiring a show of force, even Solif, a wandering noble, added meaningful numbers beyond just filling a headcount.
Leaving only Haram and Asiz’s father at the estate for contingencies, the Berk family set out for Morgen City with dozens of knights.
Already, over a dozen noble families had gathered there.
Dozens of nobles and hundreds of knights formed a massive force.
It reminded Turan of the black elf subjugation force from the past.
“The Berk family head has arrived as well.”
“Of course! I couldn’t believe Meisa was living in such conditions! What were they thinking—”
Midella, Meisa’s paternal aunt and the Berk family head, was perfectly suited to heat up the atmosphere with her outrage.
As everyone awaited Arabion’s official response, dozens of Arabion nobles approached through Morgen City’s main street.
Turan’s face stiffened as he sensed their presence, prompting Solif to quietly ask, “What’s wrong?”
“He’s here.”
Badal Arabion, the head of Arabion.
As Turan announced his arrival, Solif clicked his tongue.
“If that guy targets us here, aren’t we all dead?”
“Hardly.”
With no evidence pointing to Turan as the culprit, would they dare drag him off for investigation on a whim?
That would mean throwing away all the vested interests Arabion had maintained thus far.
Whatever the head, the leadership, or the divine entity were thinking, as long as they intended to uphold the existing order, it was an impossible move.
But if Badal Arabion ignored all that and attacked him anyway—
‘I could block it once and escape.’
Facing the head one-on-one, he’d likely die in a single blow, but there were dozens of nobles here, starting with Solif.
No matter how transcendentally strong, numbers like these would provide some resistance.
If he could withstand an attack and escape among the fleeing crowd on Bije, even the Arabion head wouldn’t be able to pursue him.
Bije’s speed far exceeded what a human could achieve with wind magic.
Even with that thought, Turan couldn’t help but feel cold sweat trickling down his back from the tension.
No matter how confident he was in escaping, it was only natural to feel fear and unease when a beast capable of tearing him apart approached.
At that moment, Badal Arabion opened his wrinkled mouth and spoke.
[“My brothers, I regret that we’ve gathered due to such an unfortunate incident.”]
As before, his voice carried clearly for hundreds of meters around, amplified by wind magic.
From the back of the gathered family heads, Turan edged closer, maximizing his relic’s senses to peer into the head’s insignia.
The closer he got, the clearer the once-blurry symbols became.
A cloud imbued with Arabion’s signature lightning, and beneath it, a clenched fist…
Three distinct symbols glowed brightly.