Shepherd Wizard-Chapter 157.2

Translator: Pai_

‘I expected this, but this is even more absurd than I thought……’

After launching the second railgun strike, Turan clicked his tongue while looking down at the ruined Ruvan encampment, then flew back south.

Since he was not yet skilled at using the railgun, the two attacks had consumed quite a bit of magic power.

Of course, if he really wanted to, he could fire five or six more times, but if he ended up getting caught by the Head of Ruvan with low magic power, that would be quite a troublesome situation in many ways.

Moreover, by retreating like this, there was also the advantage that Ruvan’s wizards had no way of stopping Turan.

A Zahar noble who sniped from over a kilometer away and escaped under concealment.

Not to mention any other bloodline, someone like Ruvan, who was solely specialized in hand-to-hand combat, could never hope to catch him. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Flying south, Turan was able to return to Helio City in about an hour.

Despite the nearly 800 kilometers of distance from the advancing army, to Bije, that was merely an hour’s flight with moderate power.

Returning leisurely to the Temple of the Sun, Turan passed through everyone’s fearful gazes and returned to the Family Head’s quarters, where he sipped tea and calmly organized documents.

Not long after, Solif, having heard of his arrival, returned.

“You’re back already?”

“Yeah. Probably killed about ten nobles. Took down one top-tier noble too.”

Solif clicked his tongue in disbelief at Turan’s casual recitation of his combat results.

One might think he had just gone to take care of a group of local bandits, given his nonchalant attitude.

“You go to war like it’s a stroll through the park……”

“I’m not even sure if this counts as a battle, but anyway, I’ve crossed the faces of the ones I killed. You can go over it with Berit later.”

What Turan had done was take the parchment where Berit had drawn the faces of Ruvan nobles and cross out a few with a quill.

He was organizing those he had clearly killed in this attack to better gauge the enemy's remaining strength.

"Wait, wait. Did I hear that correctly? You've already fought and returned?"

Berit, who had been listening to their conversation from behind, looked as though she couldn’t believe what she had just seen and heard.

And it was understandable.

They were currently working themselves to the bone trying to rally over a hundred nobles in preparation for a great-house war, and here was someone who had gone out in the morning like on a stroll and come back after killing ten nobles?

Of course, if it were just ten low-tier nobles found on the street, even Berit could have casually taken them out.

She too was a fairly powerful upper-tier noble, and a Zahar bloodline user specialized in assassination.

But killing ten nobles in a camp protected by all kinds of barriers and detection magic artifacts, or in an advancing army with scouts spread all around, was a completely different story.

Even if a great-house Family Head was an overwhelmingly powerful being, Ruvan’s Head was still guarding the other side. For him to pull it off so calmly like this, it just didn’t make sense.

Even if he had ridden Bije, just the round trip would take an hour or two. That meant he practically went, took them out immediately, and came back in no time.

Solif, unfazed by her shock, replied nonchalantly.

“It’s Turan.”

“What does that even-”

“I decided long ago to just accept that this guy is capable of anything. Even if the Ruvan Head is found dead tomorrow, I probably won’t be surprised.”

“It’s not that extreme.”

Turan shook his head at Solif’s over-the-top praise, then chatted with the two a bit more before crossing back over the Jade Mirror to return to Kalamaf.

Naturally, the nobles of Parsha had no idea what Turan had been up to, and simply welcomed their Family Head back.

If their Head wasn’t around in the morning, they just assumed he had gotten up a bit late. Who would ever imagine he had crossed to the far east and fought a battle?

“It’s time for the morning meeting, my Lord.”

“What’s the agenda?”

“A noble who claims to represent the western forest recently requested a meeting……”

*

That night, Turan once again crossed over to Varaha and carried out a second attack on the Ruvan army.

The surprise assault, carried out just as the camp was beginning to fall asleep, unfortunately did slightly less damage than the first.

It was because Ruvan’s army had adjusted the layout of their barracks to avoid suffering major losses from linear attacks.

‘So they’ve got someone clever over there too.’

However, for all that, their military strength felt somewhat lacking.

Did they really think that pushing forward with a force of this size would scare the opposition into negotiating?

In any case, Turan fired the railgun a couple more times during this round as well, eliminating about six nobles and fifty knights before fleeing.

This time, perhaps anticipating his strike, flying magical beasts poured out from all directions in an attempt to catch him. Unfortunately for them, none had the capability to detect the concealed Turan and Bije.

It appeared they did not possess any high-grade detection magic devices capable of piercing through Zahar’s concealment.

And so, after three days.

After a total of seven raids, the Ruvan army finally reversed its direction of advance.

They had come to accept the fact that if things continued like this, their army would be reduced to half by the time they reached Helio. With the combined forces of the main Varaha army and reinforcements from Parsha, they would become completely outmatched.

“What? Ruvan’s army is retreating?”

“But why?”

Not surprisingly, the nobles of Varaha were the most confused by this development.

Some among them despised Solif, the so-called fake Family Head who had taken power with foreign help, and had even hoped Ruvan would teach him a painful lesson. Others had wished for him to hold off the invasion by borrowing strength from Parsha and Lavitas if need be.

But Ruvan retreating on their own, just like that, was a development neither group had anticipated.

Of course, Turan did not simply say “go ahead” and let the fleeing Ruvan army go.

Just because the invading side lowered their fists didn’t mean this side had to do the same.

After four more raids, Turan concluded his attacks with a final strike: bombarding the Ruvan army as they crossed the border between the two families’ territories with a storm of ice spears.

There was some sound reasoning to hold back at that point, it was now enemy home territory, so pushing further would be overreaching, and above all, a new problem had arisen at the Parsha main estate around that time.

Presumably, Ruvan had launched their scheme believing that Turan and House Parsha would be too tied up with that issue to intervene actively in Varaha.

But their plan had been utterly foiled by the existence of the Jade Mirror, which allowed free travel between the two places, and the overwhelming projectile power of the railgun.

*

Not long after the fierce clash between the two great houses ended in such a strangely anticlimactic fashion, the true reason for Ruvan’s retreat began to spread across the Land of Lakes.

The retreating Ruvan army had stopped in villages and cities along the way, and the chatter of lower-ranked knights had spread through local servants.

“The Family Head of House Parsha came to House Varaha?”

“That’s what I heard. I overheard the retreating Ruvan knights talking. They said he ambushed the army in concealment and slaughtered the weaker ones.”

“I heard that three of Ruvan’s famed legion commanders lost their lives to the House Parsha Family Head.”

“It’s not like their Head could have fought him one-on-one. That side was an entire army, and this side was a lone man. We shouldn’t talk badly about someone who fought for our region……”

And so, tales of how the Family Head of House Parsha had single-handedly repelled the army of a great house began to spread widely throughout the Land of Lakes.

Of course, the commoners knew nothing about magic devices like Spatial Transfer. But they didn’t care how a lord from the far west had arrived here.

They simply assumed that high and mighty wizards had their own means for such things and accepted it at face value.

Ironically, that casual assumption happened to be spot-on.

And so, a terrifying legend was born in the East:

That the one who protected the shining sun of Varaha was none other than the shadow from the West, more fearsome and darker even than the assassins of House Zahar, the Family Head of House Parsha.

*****

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