Shepherd Wizard (Novel) - Chapter 95
Chapter 95
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After losing consciousness as if fainting for several hours, Turan awoke to the sensation of someone gently tapping his cheek.
Bije was cautiously nudging him with the side of its beak.
“Bije,” Turan murmured.
[Does it hurt a lot?]
Bije lifted a slate from a large pouch, displaying words it had clearly written in advance.
Seeing this, Turan couldn’t help but let out a small laugh.
“Not a lot, just a little… ugh.”
As he sat up, a dull pain coursed through his body, as if he’d been thoroughly beaten.
He’d used Soul of Fire to propel himself at high speed dozens of times and, in the end, had slammed into the Great Sea Serpent’s skull walls repeatedly—there was no way he’d be unscathed.
“I didn’t notice during the fight because of the adrenaline… Seems I’ve sprained quite a few places. It’ll take a while to heal on its own,” he thought.
Of course, consistent use of a healing artifact would speed up recovery.
But first, he needed to tend to his comrades’ severe injuries.
“How’s your wing?” he asked Bije.
[It’s fine!]
“Can you fly?”
At Turan’s concerned question, Bije took a light spin in the air, only to let out a sharp squeak and land awkwardly.
“Calm down, I’ll check your injury again later,” Turan said.
[Okay…]
Next, Turan woke his two collapsed companions one by one.
Solif, exhausted from excessive magic use and fatigue like Turan, got up quickly, but it took Meisa considerably longer to open her eyes.
“Where are we?” she asked groggily.
“The same island from before. How’s your body feeling?”
“I… I thought I was dead,” she said, her voice tinged with fear.
“You almost were,” Turan replied.
Perhaps recalling how her lower half had been severed at the last moment, Meisa looked down with a frightened expression.
Seeing her legs intact, she let out a sigh of relief.
“Thank goodness…”
“Let me check your injury for a moment,” Turan said.
“Okay.”
The defensive artifacts Meisa usually wore, including her beloved coat, had all lost their power.
It was a tremendous loss, but considering they’d saved her life, it was a small price to pay.
A lost life couldn’t be reclaimed, after all.
Carefully lifting her torn clothing, Turan revealed a long scar circling her body just below her navel.
Solif clicked his tongue and remarked, “Wow, it’s a miracle you’re alive. Didn’t we just slap the severed parts together and heal them without properly aligning your insides?”
“That’s actually what I’m worried about. Can you try moving? I confirmed blood’s flowing, but I don’t know if you can walk,” Turan said.
“Hmm… yeah, they’re not moving at all,” Meisa replied.
After a few light pokes and pinches, it became clear her lower half was attached but nonfunctional.
It seemed the nerves hadn’t healed properly during recovery.
They tried another dose of healing potion, but there was no noticeable improvement.
While it could mend the wound itself, a more potent healing ability was likely needed for full restoration.
“Maybe we need to call that girl who healed me back then? It’d take a while at her level, though…” Solif suggested.
“It’s fine since I can move with flight magic anyway,” Meisa said.
To prove it, she immediately used levitation and flight magic to prop herself up, gliding smoothly over the ground.
Her mastery, honed over years, far surpassed Turan’s.
“With some practice, I could probably mimic walking,” she added.
“You can’t live like that forever, though. Plus, there might be issues with your insides, so we need to find a way to heal you soon,” Turan said.
He sat her down and carefully examined the scarred area.
Perhaps due to the low-grade healing potions, the reattachment felt flimsy.
It was like a broken mast hastily patched together.
Uncertain if her internals were fully restored, they needed a healing solution quickly.
“Then we should absorb the Great Sea Serpent’s corpse first. Speaking of which, what happened to it?” Meisa asked.
“They said they’d leave it on the beach. I just woke up, so I haven’t seen it yet,” Turan replied.
“Let’s go quick! If some passing beast eats it, I’ll die of frustration!” Solif exclaimed, panicking.
Turan waved a hand to calm him. “It’s fine. The mermaids are guarding it.”
“Really?”
Turan sensed the concentrated power of the Great Sea Serpent and a single mermaid’s presence a few hundred meters away on the beach.
Just one, but in the middle of the North Sea, the odds of an enemy matching a mermaid royal appearing were slim.
“They need the corpse anyway. What I’m more worried about is if Meisa gets stronger after absorbing its magic, healing might become harder…” Turan mused.
Her current strength already made healing potions less effective; absorbing the serpent’s magic could make her untreatable without a high-level healer.
“I’m not worried. I’m not dying anytime soon. Besides, an undead’s magic disperses if not absorbed quickly, right? After all that effort, we deserve the reward,” Meisa said with a calm smile.
***
After their discussion, the trio headed to the eastern shore.
The area, devastated by the Great Sea Serpent’s death throes, held the corpse of a once-godlike monster.
“We really took down something like this…” Solif muttered.
“Even seeing it, it doesn’t feel real,” Meisa added.
Turan silently agreed with their murmurs.
The serpent, now twice-dead, resembled the corpse he’d seen underwater long ago, but facing it after fighting it firsthand felt even more surreal.
Then, someone perched atop the serpent’s head leapt down and approached them.
“What, you’re up now? Guess even strong humans weaken when exhausted,” the figure said.
“It was a brutal fight. Where are the other mermaids?” Turan asked.
It was Koloba, the young sea turtle royal who’d once been scolded for his reckless tongue.
“They’re resting in the nearby sea. We recover better underwater when tired. I’m the only one fine, so I’m stuck out here. Hurry up and suck out that magic. I’ll go get Father,” he said, visibly annoyed.
Turan nodded and turned to his companions, sensing their anticipation and eagerness.
“Shall we start?” he asked.
“Yeah,” they replied.
Approaching the massive corpse, the three humans and one beast began absorbing its magic.
A vast green glow flowed out, seeping into their bodies.
“Huh?”
Then, Turan noticed some of the magic splitting off toward the Mimic holy relic.
From experience, beast magic didn’t transfer while worn, so was this due to the god’s undead essence mixed in?
He moved to remove the relic quickly.
The optimal number for efficient magic absorption was four.
If it continued, he, Solif, Meisa, and Bije would lose out.
But Meisa and Solif grabbed his hands to stop him.
“Why?” Turan asked.
“Just leave it,” Meisa said.
“It might have some good effect,” Solif added.
They meant that if the relic, tied to its godly origin, absorbed the magic, it could yield something beneficial—otherwise, it’d just be a pointless loss of Wavecaller and Mimic magic.
Turan tried to protest, but a staggering jolt hit his mind, stealing his chance to respond.
“Urgh!”
“Haa…”
The gasps and groans from beside him barely registered.
The Great Sea Serpent’s magic flooded him with an otherworldly euphoria.
It felt as if his bones, muscles, flesh, and nerves were incinerated and reborn anew.
Compared to this, all prior magic absorptions were child’s play.
Turan’s magic, once lower-tier among top nobles, surged past Solif’s mid-tier, into the upper echelons, and finally matched Meisa’s peak-of-the-peak status.
Then, like when his bloodline locks had broken before, a clank sounded as his limits shattered and released.
His magic kept climbing, surpassing Meisa’s, settling somewhere between top nobles and great family heads before halting.
“Ah…” Turan wiped drool from his mouth and looked at his companions.
Solif clenched and unclenched his fists, brimming with uncontrollable power, while Meisa, unable to sustain her flight magic, slumped to the ground.
Their magic had also grown exponentially, surpassing ordinary great nobles.
Meisa could now hold her own in a defensive fight against Osel Ravitas, the weakest great family head Turan had met, while Solif, though weaker than Turan, outstripped her.
He’d worried one might hit their limit, but as vessels chosen by the gods, they clearly had the potential to reach head-level strength.
[Turan! Turan! I feel great! So much!] Bije chirped excitedly, having leapt several tiers itself.
It now matched Turan’s strength just before this fight—akin to a top noble or great family heir.
A beast this powerful would spark panic, labeled a mythic-tier threat.
Ordinary noble families would have no counter, forced to call on great family armies.
“With this… we could take on Arabion,” Turan thought.
He couldn’t yet guarantee victory against that mighty Thunderlord, but they could treat regular nobles—not divine avatars—as mere fodder.
Savoring that realization briefly, Turan noticed changes in his companions’ essences and studied them closely.
“Why’re you staring?” Solif asked.
“Your symbols have changed,” Turan said.
“What?” Meisa replied.
“Didn’t you hear anything in your bodies?”
“A cracking sound… like wood snapping,” Solif said.
“For me, it was glass shattering,” Meisa added.
Beside Solif’s original symbols—a glowing white hand and fireball—a shield had appeared.
It was unmistakably the guardian bloodline symbol he’d seen in his old combat mentor, Haram.
As for Meisa, alongside her lightning cloud, a white anvil and black hammer—symbols of the enchanter bloodline—had emerged.
If she wielded that hammer with a clenched fist, she could likely match the power Turan had seen from the Arabion head.
When he explained, both looked stunned.
“Enchanter…? Me?” Meisa said.
“I’ve got no ties to the guardian bloodline,” Solif protested.
“It’s one of the Silver Sun’s four bloodlines. Maybe it’s some birth secret,” Turan teased.
“Don’t joke about my parents, you jerk,” Solif grumbled, though he didn’t outright deny the possibility.
Unlike Meisa, a head’s child, Solif’s birth to ordinary noble parents could’ve been manipulated.
While Meisa tested her artifacts’ magic and Solif thumped his chest to check his durability, Turan gestured lightly at the now-cloudless sky, cleared of the storm spirit’s influence.
A thunderous bolt struck the sea with a roar.
“It’s complete… the storm bloodline,” he thought.
Normally, summoning strong lightning in clear skies required immense effort, but the magic drain he felt now matched a stormy day.
He could even pinpoint the bolt’s strike to the centimeter.
The final lightning bloodline magic had awakened at last.
Practicing further—coating himself in a lightning shield from friction or shaping it into a serpent—he caught Meisa’s attention.
“You can fully use lightning now?” she asked.
“Yeah. It’s convenient. I get why Arabion mages don’t bother with varied attack spells,” he replied.
Compared to wind magic’s difficulty in offense, lightning was absurdly potent and straightforward.
Its only flaws were vulnerability to earth-transformation defenses, like fire magic, and difficulty targeting submerged foes.
“So, did you both check?” Turan asked.
“Yeah. I can use enchantment magic now. Never tried it, so I’ll need practice,” Meisa said.
“We can ask Asiz for tips later. What about you, Solif?” Turan suggested.
“My strength’s insane now. Wanna see?” Solif offered.
When they locked hands and pulled, Turan’s body lurched toward Solif effortlessly.
“Whoa,” Turan exclaimed.
“Pretty wild, right?” Solif grinned.
Solif had always been slightly stronger than Turan, with a compact, sturdy build and potent magic, but this gap was overwhelming.
“Defense needs more testing, but… it’s definitely up,” Solif said.
With his solar bloodline’s attack power now bolstered by guardian defenses and melee prowess, he was arguably the group’s top fighter in raw offense and defense.
His downside was near-zero mobility and support abilities.
That lack of flight had forced him to rely on rear support after Bije’s injury in this fight.
“I wish I’d gotten that instead of enchanter,” Meisa muttered, then clamped her mouth shut, perhaps realizing her complaint disrespected the mother who’d passed down her lineage.
As they chatted about their gains, multiple mermaid presences emerged from the sea.
Soon, the mermaid king and his kin surfaced.
“Kind demon! You’re safe!” Armani cheered.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Turan replied, greeting the beaming Armani and scanning the royals.
The absence of Makun, the king’s eldest octopus son, and other fallen royals was stark.
He didn’t feel much regret, though.
When they’d staggered onto the island, exhausted, the king’s gaze had clearly been sizing them up.
Had their forces been intact—and had Turan not planted doubts about being a god’s avatar—they might’ve been killed on the spot.
The stern-faced king pressed Armani’s head down and said, “So, have you finished harvesting?”
“Pretty much,” Turan replied.
“Then we’ll take our share now,” the king declared.
Turan quietly weighed their power against the royals’.
Both sides were battered, but his group was far stronger than before, while the mermaids had weakened.
A fight here would ensure victory.
But—
“As promised, we’ll hand over the corpse,” Turan said.
“Hm, fair,” the king grunted.
Though he seemed to test them, he didn’t attack, so the promise held.
The mermaids gaining the serpent’s power might benefit Turan’s group long-term anyway.
Led by the giant whale, the royals—transformed into large sea creatures—dragged the corpse from the beach. Armani, the little shark, waved a fin in farewell before vanishing underwater.
“Phew, it’s really over…” Solif sighed.
“But how do we leave this island? The boat’s wrecked, and Bije’s wing isn’t great. Should’ve asked them to take us to a nearby island,” Meisa said.
“Bije’s not too injured, so more healing potions should fix it soon,” Turan reassured.
Bije flapped its wings as if to say not to worry, then squeaked in pain from the still-healing break.
As Turan petted the whimpering creature, Meisa spoke up.
“What about that? The holy relic?”
“Right! Totally forgot. Hope splitting our magic with it was worth it,” Solif said.
At their urging, Turan pulled the relic from his chest.
It looked unchanged externally, so he pressed the clasp to open it—
“Huh?”
“What?” Meisa asked.
“The inside’s different,” Turan replied.