Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 55 Seven years ago, when young Turan lost his mother to illness, the village elders presented him with a document. Under the pretext of managing his inheritance, they demanded he mark it with his thumbprint.
The document stated that the sheep ranch on Hisaril Hill would be transferred to the collective ownership of the village.
Turan, who was literate, naturally refused. However, the elders dismissed the document as a mere formality they had intended to bypass from the start and forcibly threw him out.
At the time, neither Turan's body nor his mana had matured; he couldn't even dream of fighting back. The fear that openly revealing himself as a mage would lead to capture by wicked nobles also paralyzed him.
After being driven from the ranch, Turan lay in the fields for a long time, eventually devising a way to reclaim his mother's legacy without exposing his magic.
His plan was simple: hide in the sparse thickets surrounding the village and hurl stones at anyone who stepped outside.
His first targets were the village elders who had stolen his property.
Fortunately, a young noble's full-strength sling shot was more than enough to fly dozens of meters and shatter the bones of old men.
The first two he targeted suffered broken legs. The next had his jaw torn away, leaving him able to eat only porridge for the rest of his life. The last took a hit to the head, lingered in agony for a few days, and died.
The young and middle-aged men of the village rushed out with weapons to seek revenge, but Turan used his keen sense of smell to pinpoint their locations first. He would snipe one or two from a distance and then vanish, repeating the process over and over.
Though he was young, he was already faster than anyone in the village; no one could catch him.
How many days did that struggle last?
After over a dozen more were severely injured or killed, the village—effectively besieged by a single twelve-year-old boy—finally declared its surrender.
The reason those memories surfaced now was that the current situation felt exactly like back then.
He had just killed one noble, leaving seven nobles and thirty-five knights.
Individually, they were pathetically weaker than Turan, but in a head-on collision, he couldn't be certain of victory. They were an allied force, meaning they possessed a wide variety of bloodline abilities.
However, such a disadvantage was something that could easily be overturned with the right strategy.
"Go up first, Bije."
At Turan's command as he stepped out of the tent, Bije immediately soared high into the sky.
It would be much more convenient if I could share my stealth ability with others.
Perhaps the Zahar family possessed a secret technique related to that. Whether the day would ever come for him to learn it, he didn't know.
Seeing the golden eagle suddenly take flight, several nearby knights shouted in surprise.
"Huh? Isn't that the magical beast Lady Maxi caught earlier?"
"The wings look too fine for that."
"She definitely said to keep it locked up…"
While the camp fell into a minor commotion because of Bije, Turan moved toward the leaders while maintaining his stealth. He channeled mana into his spinning sling, creating a Wind Path.
First, this one.
Sshhh. With a faint whistle of air, a stone flew out and pierced the head of a large female noble.
It wasn't a brutal crushing blow like before; because of the extreme velocity, it simply left a clean, gaping hole. It was a hollow end for an expert who might have lasted a minute or two in a direct confrontation.
Regardless of the silent launch, the sound of the skull being pierced was audible. Everyone's eyes turned toward the collapsing noblewoman.
"Lady Maxi?"
"Sister… It's an attack! We're under attack!"
"Everyone, defensive positions!"
Having lost their leader in a completely unexpected situation, the Corel Allied Forces instantly fell into a panic. Naturally, not a single person suspected that a Zahar noble had slipped in to attack. It was far too nonsensical to imagine that people who should be in the distant Enril Desert would suddenly launch an ambush here.
Thanks to that, Turan could leisurely prepare his Wind Path and snipe the second strongest noble.
Number two.
This time, the target was a rather small, slight male noble. Unlike the first victim, he seemed to possess a defensive magic device; instead of having his head pierced, he screamed and rolled across the ground. However, judging by the pale brain matter leaking from his head, he wouldn't be joining the fight anytime soon.
It was then that one of the nobles finally regained their wits and shouted at the top of their lungs.
"It's stealth! Everyone, light it up!"
It would have been easier if he could have killed a third, but it didn't matter much. The moment the two strongest were neutralized, the power dynamic had already shifted.
Turan clicked his tongue lightly and snapped his fingers hard.
A single spark ignited from the friction. The moment he blew a powerful gust of wind into it, a firestorm erupted above Turan's head and swept through the entire camp.
"Aaaaaagh!"
"It's hot! Water! Get some water!"
Desperate screams echoed from all directions.
Had such a firestorm been unleashed from a distance, it wouldn't have been that difficult to counter. By a mage's standards, the speed of flames carried by wind isn't particularly fast, and defense is as simple as creating a counter-wind. Even if one person couldn't do it, dozens working together could have overcome Turan's magic.
But a firestorm suddenly erupting in the middle of the camp was enough to force catastrophic losses upon the Corel Allied Forces.
Eight knights and one noble who were relatively close to him burned to death before they could even scream. Another five or six knights further away rolled on the ground in agony, suffering from horrific burns.
Before the firestorm sweeping the camp could even dissipate, dozens of spells poured toward its center.
"Kill him!"
They were seasoned mages who had fought in wars, after all. The momentum of the incoming magic was formidable.
Fire arrows, stone showers, water bombs, spears of light, and even real arrows and javelins infused with mana… These spells, enhanced by bloodlines and honed over decades, displayed power far exceeding the mana their masters had actually invested.
However, there was no one left in the spot where the spells landed.
"What…?"
"Stealth! Hurry, the lights!"
The nobles of the Corel Allied Forces simultaneously launched spheres of light in all directions. Yet, even with the surrounding hundred meters illuminated, no one was revealed.
"Huh…?"
"He's gone?"
After unleashing the firestorm, Turan had used wind magic for propulsion to quickly exit the camp. He had been clipped by a few spells in the process, but thanks to activating his Guardian magic device, he had only sustained minor injuries. Even those were immediately healed by consuming the leftover healer bloodline mana he had used earlier.
While the Corel Allied Forces stood half-dazed, feeling as if they were fighting a ghost, Turan created another Wind Path and sniped another noble.
Realizing that the enemy was accurately picking off only the nobles, the morale of the Allied Forces plummeted to rock bottom.
"Ugh, ahhh…"
"I surrender! I surrender! Please spare me!"
"Surrender? Run! Scatter and run! That monster intends to kill us all!"
At a noble's shout, Turan threw another stone, proving the suspicion correct.
If he could have overwhelmed them without using his bloodline abilities, he might have shown mercy. But once he had revealed them, letting anyone live was not an option. If rumors spread that a Zahar noble was in the far west, there was no telling when it might be traced back to him.
["Let's attack together now, Bije."]
When he sent his voice to Bije, who was circling the sky using wind magic, she let out a sharp cry and dove toward one of the scattering mages.
A fleeing knight was caught in Bije's claws and wailed as he was torn apart.
"Aaaaaagh!"
The remaining remnants of the Corel Allied Forces fled in all directions, realizing instinctively that perhaps none of them would leave this place alive.
*
"Forty-three in total… Good, didn't miss a single one."
Turan counted the bodies as he tossed the corpse of the last knight into the camp.
He had killed people a few times in his life, but forty-three was a number that far exceeded his previous record in one go. As his head, which had been heated by rage, cooled down, the reality felt bittersweet. Surely, some among them might not have wanted to participate in hunting a magical beast that already had a master.
Of course, there was only one way Turan could have been considerate of them: by simply leaving without attempting revenge in the first place.
Unfortunately, he wasn't a kind enough person to prioritize innocent strangers over his own principles. If he was struck, he had to retaliate; and once he retaliated, he couldn't leave any loose ends.
"Let's clean up first. Bije, you ready?"
[Yeah!]
Turan and Bije began by absorbing the mages' mana.
Naturally, a knight's mana wasn't helpful at all, serving only to prevent necrotic transformation. Even the leader and the high-ranking nobles were only slightly beneficial.
On the other hand, the Mimic Relic was newly charged with six different bloodline abilities.
Unlike Turan, Bije's mana grew noticeably. After all, she had essentially devoured several mages who were her equals or stronger. She chirped and danced, clearly pleased with her newfound strength.
"Don't get too excited. You'll make a habit of eating people."
[I'm strong now! Won't get caught next time!]
"Be careful. There are still many people in this world stronger than you or me."
Of course, the number of people truly stronger than Turan wasn't that large. At most, it would be the top-tier mages of the Great Families, like Meisa, and the Family Heads who reigned above them. Considering there were fewer than ten Great Families, the total number would likely be only forty or fifty people.
After absorbing all the mana, he searched for the magic devices they possessed and managed to obtain a ring and an earring. The defensive magic device that had blocked one of his sling stones seemed to have been a single-use item, as it had shattered.
Since he no longer needed to worry about Zahar nobles tracking him as he had before, Turan took everything and burned the entire camp to erase the last traces.
"We should leave this area for a while. Where do you want to go?"
[Anywhere is fine as long as I'm with Turan!]
Bije wrote out a bright response to Turan's question.
"Then let's head that way. It'll be more fun to travel somewhere we haven't been."
The north was too close to Arabion, the west was blocked by the Sky Mountains, and the east was where they had come from. The only choice left was the south.
According to the map Keorn had given him in the past, there was a Great Family located there: the Lavitas family, who ruled the land known as the Siraf Wetlands. They were famous for being a Great Family formed by the union of two non-combatant bloodlines: Healers and Purifiers.
*
This flight turned into another forced march, unlike the trip from Kalamaf.
In mage society, stealing a magical beast with a bound soul was a crime certainly deserving of death, but since there was no way to prove it other than Turan's word, it was essentially the same as robbery and murder.
Fortunately, the journey was much smoother than when they had left the Enril Desert, thanks to Bije's speed and endurance having improved significantly after absorbing so much mana. She flew almost without rest and never complained of fatigue.
After three full days of flying while avoiding people using tracking magic, the terrain and climate gradually began to shift.
By the time the surroundings were completely covered in low forests and marshlands, Turan spotted a village in the distance and landed nearby.
"The smell in this neighborhood isn't great…"
A foul, rotting stench wafted from the stagnant water beneath the reed beds. His sense of smell would tire and adapt soon enough, but it wasn't a pleasant feeling.
Turan headed toward the village he had seen from the sky, carrying Bije under his arm. Since he had zero information about this region, he planned to learn about the local customs and nearby cities.
Oh.
He hadn't noticed from above, but up close, the village had a very unique appearance. Nearly half of the houses were built over the lake. Not every house was like that, but about two-thirds seemed to be constructed that way.
As Turan approached, a tanned, middle-aged woman saw him and cried out in shock.
"Good heavens!"
He wondered why she was so startled, only to realize her gaze was fixed on Bije hanging from his side.
"It's alright, ma'am. She's a good bird."
"I've never seen a bird that looks like that… But are you sick or something? Wearing so many layers."
Come to think of it, the woman's clothing was much thinner than Turan's, leaving her arms and legs exposed. It was likely because it was hotter in the south.
Not long ago in Kalamaf, he had been outed as a mage for dressing too lightly; here, he was being treated as suspicious for the exact opposite reason. It was quite ironic.
"It's nothing like that; I just came from far away. Is there a large city nearby?"
"A city? If you head that way, you'll find one, but… the atmosphere's been quite unsettling lately."
"Is something going on?"
Having ignored such an atmosphere recently only to find out a war was happening, Turan immediately pressed for details.
The woman answered cautiously.
"Well, I don't know the name of the house, but they say the highest-ranking person passed away not too long ago."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Read 217 more chapters ahead on NovelDex!
https://noveldex.io/series/the-shepherd-wizard
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━