Shepherd Wizard-Chapter 161.2

Translator: Pai_

The first encounter with the head of House Zahar.

His first impression was quite different from what Turan had expected.

Originally, Zahar was known as a cold and ruthless group of assassins, and their family head was thought to be the assassin of assassins, the ultimate killer.

In contrast, Haroon Zahar looked rather plain and easygoing, with a cheerful smile, like an ordinary old man you might find anywhere.

His appearance bore little resemblance to Turan, and to be precise, he looked entirely different even from his own younger brother, Talis.

“Well now, may I join you?”

“Of course, granduncle.”

Whatever Haroon made of the title Turan used, he chuckled and took a seat across from the other two family heads.

Since it had been deliberately arranged that way, Turan and Osel sat on one side, creating a confrontational composition against Haroon.

“Oh, you've set things up quite nicely here in this place. Then if you’ll excuse me for a moment.”

As soon as he sat down, Haroon uttered those words and immediately began to eat and drink the food and water set before him without hesitation.

Though nobles do not easily die from common poisons, his attitude was bold to an excessive degree.

Seeing this, Turan and Osel were able to relax a bit.

Now that hospitality had been extended, if any one of them tried to harm the other, it would inflict immense moral damage on them in return.

In the past, Solif, the head of the House Varaha, had faced significant backlash even within his own house for violating such customs in Lavitas, showing how such practices, seemingly trivial, could sometimes hold grave significance.

While Haroon was quenching his thirst, Turan used the Mimic Relic to peer into his inner self.

The first things he saw were the two symbols, Hunter and Chaser, the same ones Turan possessed.

And...

‘As expected, he has three as well.’

Although it had been somewhat coordinated, the fact that he could fight on equal terms with Badal, the head of House Aravion, suggested as much. Haroon, head of House Zahar, also possessed three bloodline abilities.

A murky, purple, bubbling swamp-like entity.

It was a symbol Turan had never seen before, something whose identity he couldn’t even begin to guess.

‘Could it be... one of the remaining two bloodlines of the Night Hunter? Alchemist and Shadow... but those should have long perished.’

It should be impossible to awaken a bloodline not inherited, even with soul magic’s aptitude infusion.

Or perhaps, if it were in the form of awakening a dormant bloodline, it might be possible.

Originally, the Night Hunter's lineage held all four powers, and the ancestor of Zahar likely inherited all of them.

He had simply failed to awaken two of the bloodlines.

As Turan was lost in thought, Haroon, seemingly unaware of what was going through his mind, smiled and struck up a conversation.

"Now I feel somewhat alive. I thought I was going to die traveling at this age. The sun beating down, sand catching in my throat with every breath..."

“Hmph.”

Osel, seated across from him, replied to the talkative old man with a light snort.

However, Turan could sense that despite his outward behavior, Osel was inwardly flustered.

‘Well, of course he is.’

House Zahar was famed as a lineage of assassins feared throughout the world, and their family head was reputed to be the most powerful assassin, a nightmarish terror in the dark.

Who would imagine that such a figure would look so easygoing and ramble on with frivolous words?

But Turan didn’t fall for that outward appearance.

Even as he spewed out meaningless chatter, Haroon’s eyes were subtly scanning Turan.

Considering that within him dwelled a fallen god who had lived for thousands of years, and even a leader of one such faction, regarding him as merely an empty-headed man would be foolish.

With a light gesture, Turan signaled those nearby to withdraw a bit farther, then politely addressed Haroon.

“The journey must have been difficult. Let us talk slowly while you eat.”

“Thank you. It’s all thanks to my fine grandnephew that I’m being treated so well.”

The food wasn’t particularly luxurious enough to call it a treat, yet Haroon devoured it like a truly hungry man.

Indeed, just looking at his tall height and sturdy build, he gave the impression of a big eater.

Unlike Turan, whose frame was relatively slim, Haroon’s arms, legs, and even waist were thick and robust, his body well-trained. If it came down to physical combat with equal levels of magic power and bloodline, Turan would likely be the one to lose.

While quietly observing his opponent, Turan soon shifted his gaze to Haroon’s equipment.

At a glance, he seemed dressed in quite a decent desert nomad outfit, but thanks to the Mimic Relic, Turan could see that his entire body was wrapped in relic-grade treasures.

Among them, the most noticeable were the garment covering his upper body and the long stick strapped to his back.

It extended in a straight line before bending slightly to the side midway, but Turan couldn’t grasp what kind of object it was supposed to be.

At the very least, if he could unwrap the cloth wrapped around it, he might be able to figure it out to some extent...

“Hmm, perhaps you’re curious about this?”

Perhaps noticing his gaze, Haroon grinned as he pointed to the stick strapped to his back.

Turan nodded without hesitation and asked,

“I am indeed curious. Would you be willing to tell me?”

“Of course. But not for free, I’m afraid.”

Haroon brushed the crumbs off his hands and looked at him with a smiling face.

At that moment, Turan felt a subtle sense of pressure as he looked into those gray eyes, one of the few features they shared.

‘This is…’

In that moment, the three symbols within the inner self of the head of House Zahar began to intertwine.

Eyes that were originally separate merged into the black mist, soon transforming into thousands of tiny eyes that surrounding the mist.

Like the seeds of a strawberry.

The fourth symbol that then emerged was something like a triangular glass bottle.

The bubbling violet liquid flowed into the glass bottle, swirled around, and then burst out, hardening into the form of thousands of arrows.

As the arrows sank into the mist filled with eyes and aimed outward, it looked as though a giant with thousands of eyes and arms was hiding within it.

‘Night Hunter!’

Turan instinctively realized it upon seeing that image.

Haroon Zahar had drawn upon the power of the Night Hunter by manipulating his own soul.

Could it be that he was planning to attack right here?

Noticing that Turan’s body had tensed up in preparation for combat, Haroon chuckled and asked,

“Did you see it?”

“Yes.”

“As expected, you have the ability to peer into others’ souls.”

Turan had already guessed that Zahar would know this fact.

It wasn't the first time he'd shown that he could see the opponent manipulating soul magic to combine symbols and then imitate it.

After all, without knowing the answer, it was nearly impossible to figure out symbol combinations on one's own.

Even if one imagined something like what Turan had just seen, eyes blending into shadows, transforming into thousands of small eyes scanning the surroundings, without someone showing an example, replicating it would be extremely difficult.

For that reason, Turan had also gone to great lengths to show examples to Meisa and Solif, who couldn’t witness it directly.

“You may or may not know this, but Mimics originally didn’t have such an ability. It probably came into being when it turned into a sacred relic.”

“Is that so?”

"Nobody would know better than I do! I'm the only one who traveled with him for a while when he came here."

Though it wasn’t Turan’s first time conversing with a fallen god, it was the first time he had seen anyone who acted so familiar with the Mimic God.

Haroon laughed heartily and turned to Osel, seated nearby.

“You must have some rough idea too, no?”

“That you people are fallen, ancient gods?”

"You've already said it all! Well, I expected as much."

Haroon laughed heartily again, ate another piece of bread, and then gestured to the back.

There, a group of about a dozen Zahar nobles had gathered, including Talis, still wearing his mask.

“If you knew how many times those fellows back there tried to persuade me, both of you ought to thank me. They’ve been persistently urging me to strike Parsha immediately, or at the very least, to wipe out Lavitas entirely.”

Unlike the startled Osel, Turan nodded calmly, acknowledging the unexpected revelation.

He already knew from the information Berit had provided that the upper echelons of Zahar had suggested attacking Parsha and Lavitas, and that it was this very family head who had stopped it.

Regrettably, even Berit hadn’t been able to uncover the reason why.

“Now then, it’s time to get to the main point... Head of House Lavitas, if it’s all right with you, may I speak with him alone for a moment? It concerns one of the most intimate secrets of our house. No need to go far, ten meters should be enough.”

Turan sensed a peculiar tone hidden within the man’s relaxed voice.

It seemed as if he was subtly trying to drive a wedge between them, suggesting that the connection between Turan and Zahar was stronger than the alliance with Lavitas.

So before Osel could respond, Turan immediately opened his mouth.

“It’s fine. Osel and I have helped each other multiple times.”

“Hmph. Well, I suppose that much is true.”

Though Osel frowned with displeasure as he nodded in response to Turan's words, Turan could tell that the young-looking elder was secretly pleased.

Haroon, who noticed the same, burst out laughing.

“You look like a pampered young lord on the outside, but you’re already quite seasoned in politics! Then again, someone who leads a great house ought to be. If only my grandson were even half as capable as you.”

On the surface, it sounded like praise, but Turan considered that it might be a deliberate attempt to lower his guard.

For the young, praise from the head of a great house, especially from the head of Zahar, was sweet enough to numb the mind.

As they continued this back-and-forth exchange, Osel suddenly stood up and said,

“I’ll step away for a bit. If it’s something I need to know, the head of Parsha will tell me later.”

“Oh ho.”

Just as Haroon had done earlier, Osel’s words were a clear display that the alliance with Lavitas was stronger than any blood tie with Zahar.

After he stepped away a bit, Haroon pulled a magic artifact from his robe, and the air current around them shifted.

Turan realized that this was a technique crafted into an artifact, derived from the wind magic he often used himself, but in the form of a magic artifact.

“You’re quite mischievous.”

“What, can’t a man play a little trick on his grandnephew when meeting him for the first time?”

Joking around, Haroon truly did look like an old man who had aged as much as his appearance suggested.

A completely different appearance from Ymir, who acted like a man in his twenties, or the Carmine gods.

Through his conversations with the half-elves, Turan had come to understand why the mental ages of these beings varied so widely.

Despite having lived thousands of years, their personalities were heavily influenced by the physical vessels they inhabited, and they also tended to treat their own personas as if they were playing theatrical roles.

In the same way Turan had distinct personas, Turan as the head of Parsha, Turan as Meisa’s lover, Turan as the friend of Solif and Ashiz, so too did these beings act differently depending on their counterpart.

Just as he wouldn't treat his subordinates with the same friendliness as his friends, or treat his friends with the same affection as his lover, they too merely acted differently according to who they were dealing with.

“Then, shall we get to the purpose of our meeting... Turan Parsha, do you know that you are the reincarnation of the Night Hunter?”

It wasn’t a question of whether he might be the reincarnation, it was almost a statement of fact.

Turan paused for a moment at that question.

‘Should I affirm it? Or deny it?’

Though the half-elves had forgotten much of what they had known before arriving in this world, one of the few things they still remembered was the true identity of the old man before him.

According to them, the head of House Zahar had once been one of the subordinate gods serving under Otas, the original Night Hunter.

Viewed positively, he might regard favorably the reincarnation of the lord he once followed; viewed negatively, he might try to eliminate someone who could be an obstacle to his supremacy.

Fortunately, Turan had already considered this matter beforehand, and so he didn’t need long to answer.

“To be honest, I’m not sure.”

“Not sure?”

“Yes. I know that I was born with far more power than my origin would justify, but I don’t have any memories of being a being like you.”

Haroon’s face showed no particular reaction upon hearing Turan’s honest answer.

Not even his scent conveyed any identifiable emotion.

Was he, like Turan, exerting all his strength to control himself? Or did he truly feel nothing upon hearing such a reply?

As Turan’s suspicions began to rise, Haroon nodded and spoke.

“Just as I thought. That’s what I expected. Thank you for your honesty.”

“Then, may I ask one question as well? Why do you think I’m the reincarnation of the Night Hunter? Is it because I carry Zahar blood?”

To that, Haroon shook his head and replied,

“No, it’s because I’m the one who tried to resurrect the Night Hunter.”

*****

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