Shepherd Wizard-Chapter 159.1

Translator: Pai_

“I greet the head of House Parsha. I am the one leading these-”

Turan quietly observed the disarmed Carmine wizards lined up, and the middle-aged woman standing at their front, offering her greeting.

She was someone he remembered seeing while disguised as Onil.

A high-ranking noble of Carmine, and judging from her absence at the secret meeting with Talis, likely not a possession of a god.

Uneasiness was written all over her face, as well as the faces of the Carmine wizards behind her.

Naturally so.

They were already surrounded by the wizards of House Parsha, and the head of the family stood right in front of them.

“I don’t care who you are. Just answer the question I asked earlier. What is the Carmine army doing in a place like this?”

“I’m sorry, but it’s difficult to speak on that matter. It is, after all, an internal affair of the House Carmine... ugh!”

As she tried to make excuses, the woman groaned under a crushing pressure that seemed to weigh down her whole body.

Turan hadn't done anything special, merely exerting a slight pressure with his magic power.

Now Turan's power was such that even a simple projection of magic power, which should normally be harmless, could inflict near-suffocating mental pain on those with the skill level of knights.

Just like how an ant realizes the true size of the whale beside it, the moment one perceives a being of an entirely different dimension, they instinctively fall into fear.

“If, as you say, this is merely an internal affair of Carmine, then I have no reason to interfere. But sending an army into the territory of my House is a different story. This is your final warning. Speak. What is going on?”

Any lesser coward would have wet themselves under such pressure, but surprisingly, the commander of Carmine endured Turan’s presence with a straight back.

“You refuse to speak?”

“According to the Ebel Agreement, which established Carmine’s borders twelve hundred years ago... unless one descends from the mountain, this area cannot be interpreted as belonging to Parsha. We are merely carrying out an assignment issued by our main house…”

Turan silently stared at the woman, who struggled to respond, and eventually stopped projecting his magic power.

Everyone remained silent, so only the sound of shallow breathing echoed across the quiet mountainside.

In the meantime, Turan quietly opened the jewel box and asked the librarian.

[Elder, may I ask you something? What is the Ebel Agreement?]

[Why are you suddenly asking such nonsense? It's a boundary agreement made 1231 years ago between Carmine, Aravion, and the union of houses in the Gray Zone, the three powers.]

According to the following explanation, they had defined their borders up to the mid-slopes of the northern mountains of the Gray Zone, meaning that strictly speaking, the area near the mountain summit was close to a neutral zone.

Having learned this information, Turan lightly clicked his tongue and nodded.

“Well, you’re not wrong.”

Only then did Turan realize that the other party had intended this situation and positioned themselves here.

How could they have known that this land was the boundary between Carmine and the Gray Zone, and thus a place where it was conventionally difficult to hold them accountable, without studying it in advance?

Even Turan, who enjoyed reading, had to ask the librarian about the agreement, it was that ancient.

The reason the Carmine group refrained from attacking and instead defended themselves with a barrier against the Parsha nobles who had come to scout was likely to establish a pretext.

They could claim, “We were merely doing our job in a neutral area, and they attacked us.”

‘So, why did they do this?’

Could it be that there really was some hidden treasure atop the mountain they came to retrieve?

No, if that were the case, Turan himself would have already found it.

He had wandered these mountains more times than he could count, and anything out of the ordinary would have tripped the senses of his Mimic Relic.

'The purpose was to draw me here... could it be?'

What came to Turan’s mind was the war between Varaha and Ruvan occurring to the east.

Had he not struck first and forced Ruvan’s army to retreat, they would have arrived in Helio right around now.

If, at that time, the Carmine army had been lingering in the northern Gray Zone, the House Parsha would have found it difficult to offer appropriate support.

‘Come to think of it, the request to join the Great Sea Serpent hunt a while back might have been for a similar reason.’

He had refused because he suspected they might stab him in the back, but on second thought, the real objective might have been to draw him out in the first place.

If Turan and the elite members of the House Parsha had left the main house to hunt the Great Sea Serpent, it would naturally have been difficult to support Varaha.

Turan glanced unemotionally at the commander of the Carmine army, who had her head bowed, and the wizards behind her, then tossed out a question.

“Was this operation coordinated with Ruvan in advance?”

"I don't understand what you mean."

The woman, who appeared to be the commander, as well as the other Carmine nobles, did not show any signs of guilt at Turan’s question.

There was no trace of the kind of dizzying despair typical of someone who had been caught doing something wrong.

‘Well, even if it were true, they wouldn’t have informed these small fry who aren’t even possessed.’

Although he’d asked just in case, Turan found his hypothesis fairly plausible.

The fact that the operation continued despite Ruvan’s retreat was likely due to the inability to communicate in real time.

With the sea route blocked, they would have had to use flying magical beasts or similar means for communication. But the distance between Carmine and Ruvan was such that even top-tier magical beasts like Bije would need days to travel, making it highly probable that the news of Ruvan’s retreat had not yet reached them.

After organizing his thoughts, Turan declared to the Carmine army:

“For now, I will not impose punishment, considering you haven’t crossed the boundary.”

At his words, some of the Carmine wizards sighed in relief.

Of course, if Turan had arbitrarily executed or taken the Carmine army prisoner, it would have been politically burdensome for him as well.

After all, they had merely set up camp with a barrier in the neutral zone between the two families’ territories.

But people do not always act purely rationally.

Those with more power than others tend to be relatively fickle, and a family head of a great noble house was the most powerful of the powerful.

In other words, it wouldn’t be strange if he acted according to his whims.

“However, I cannot permit an army of this size to remain right next to our House’s territory. As soon as you are released, you are to withdraw from the mountain range.”

“I’m sorry, but that is not something I have the authority to decide.”

The Parsha wizards were astonished, and even the Carmine wizards opened their eyes wide at their commander’s firm resistance.

The family head of a great noble house had just ordered them to leave, and she dared talk back?

Up until a moment ago, the situation could be overlooked as them merely following House orders, but this was something else entirely.

If Turan struck her down on the spot in rage, no one would find it unjustified.

But instead of getting angry at her attitude, Turan calmly opened his mouth.

“I see. Even while your House’s capital is being overrun and the people you’re supposed to protect are suffering, you still can’t stop picking fights with another House for no particular reason.”

At his sarcastic remark, a crack finally appeared in the iron-mask-like expression of the woman.

Rage, and shame.

‘As I thought, there’s no real reason for them to remain here. Their goal is simply to provoke the House Parsha and prevent them from lending strength to Varaha.’

With that, Turan could fully grasp the enemy’s true intent.

Not long after, the Carmine army began packing up their camp and started returning north, back the way they had come.

The subordinates had overridden their commander, who had been adamant about holding their ground according to orders.

At that point, Turan sent Meisa, who had accompanied him, back to Kalamaf first, then rode Bije and continued patrolling toward the east.

As a result, to his surprise, he found that two more units were stationed near the mountain summit.

Fortunately, neither of their commanders was as strong-willed as the first one.

Not only could he intimidate them into retreat with just light threats, but he even got one of them to admit they had received instructions to “buy as much time as possible in this place.”

As the sky began to be dyed with sunset, Turan, riding on Bije back toward Kalamaf, addressed those riding behind him.

“Well, I ended up stealing a busy day from you all for nothing. Had I known it would end so tamely, I would’ve come alone.”

“No, Family Head! On the contrary, we should have handled something of this level ourselves. We are only sorry that you had to personally step in…”

Moson Mebern, the son of the Lord of Bigen who represented the wizards dispatched to Parsha, said with an apologetic expression.

As he said, matters like this were not something a family head of a great noble house should deal with directly.

Normally, while the high-ranking nobles remained cloistered at the main house, lesser nobles would go back and forth a few times to converse, report to their houses, receive responses, and just resolving a single dispute could take months.

The gods ruling over Carmine probably anticipated that Turan would waste time in such a way, which is why they instigated this situation.

It was only because Turan was unnecessarily proactive that he stepped in and dealt with it swiftly.

*