Shepherd Wizard-Chapter 164.2

Translator: Pai_

"You appear younger than I expected."

"I was born ninety-five years ago this year. Karim and I are fifteen years apart."

Their mother had been a commoner concubine, who had already passed away long ago from old age.

Even if she had given birth to Aril at twenty, she would now be well over a hundred, it was only natural.

Since Aril was the elder sibling, if his father were still alive, he would now be exactly eighty.

Which meant that when Karim was involved with Turan’s mother, Bizella, he would have been around sixty.

Given that Bizella had been in her late teens at the time, the age difference was staggering, even appalling, but physically, it probably hadn’t looked so strange.

For nobles, sixty was roughly equivalent to a healthy young man in his twenties by ordinary standards.

"So young..."

Turan murmured unconsciously while listening in silence.

His friend Solif was approaching sixty, so when he thought about it, the age difference between Solif and Karim was actually less than that between Turan and Solif.

Despite the sixty-year age gap between father and son, they almost felt like they belonged to the same generation.

The world of nobles was, in many ways, quite peculiar.

'Come to think of it, does that mean I'm in the same generation as my child?'

The age difference between Turan and the child Meisa was carrying was twenty years.

That was roughly the same age gap between Ashiz and Turan, so it wouldn’t be strange to even call them friends.

At this rate, it almost felt inappropriate to call the child an heir.

By the time Turan died of old age, his first child might already be in a similar state, or even have passed away earlier...

“May I continue?”

“Ah, please do. I’m listening.”

Seeing Turan lost in thought, Aril, who had remained silent for a moment, gently resumed speaking.

What followed wasn’t particularly new or unusual.

Karim Zahar had been the youngest among the children of Talis Zahar, and was somewhat marginalized within the family.

He was born with relatively weak magic power and had no outstanding specialties.

Being the son of Talis, one of the top-tier powers, Karim was still treated with some respect among the lower-ranked nobles, but due to his timid personality, he never abused that status.

Ironically, because of that, he was ostracized by nobles of similar standing within House Zahar, as they found him hypocritical.

The only one he often spent time with was Aril, who shared the same parents.

“Here, a portrait.”

Turan carefully examined the portrait of Karim that Aril had drawn using ash sand.

A young man with short black hair and gray eyes.

Though his features were somewhat rough, the resemblance to Turan was obvious- naturally, he also resembled Talis.

If the three of them stood side by side, one would likely mistake them for a father and his two sons.

The part of his appearance that didn’t resemble his grandfather or Turan was his strong build.

His broad shoulders and large frame were actually closer to his great-uncle, Haroon.

Had Turan inherited that physique, he might have had more advantage in close combat.

Turan clicked his tongue in quiet disappointment.

Afterward, Aril recounted various stories about Karim that she knew.

Like the time he was punished after being caught helping a commoner escape execution for damaging a noble’s possession, or the time he gently beat a child who had unwittingly entered the oasis and ended up being punished in the child’s place...

After quietly listening for a while, Turan spoke his honest thoughts.

“My father seems to have had a personality that suffered many losses.”

“He was far too soft-hearted for a Zahar noble. When he kept his mouth shut, he looked cold and unreadable, but in truth, he was gentle and vulnerable. I even saw him cry alone at times.”

It must have taken some courage to tell the head of a great noble house that his father used to secretly sob in corners, but Aril’s face showed no particular change in expression as she spoke.

Not that Turan thought she was lying.

Throughout the conversation, Turan had been activating the Eye of Truth he had learned earlier to see whether she was telling the truth.

As they talked, Turan could gradually picture how his father and mother had come to be involved and grown close.

A cheerful captive girl who remained optimistic even while in enemy hands, and a large, blunt young man who was gentle at heart, the transformation from conqueror and prize to lovers...

Naturally, while thinking along those lines, he couldn’t help but arrive at the one who had driven their relationship to ruin.

“Aunt.”

“Yes, speak.”

“How did my father die? I’ve only heard that he lost his life during the war.”

At Turan’s question, Aril’s eyes widened slightly, though she didn’t show much disturbance.

It was likely a question she had anticipated.

She would already have heard from Talis that Karim had died.

“I don’t know the details myself. During the war, Karim was assigned to a different unit than I was… However, I heard he was killed by the magic of an Aravion noble. I also saw the wounds on his body before the funeral.”

Since her statement didn’t appear to be false, it meant Aril truly believed it to be the truth.

Which also meant she wasn’t involved in his death.

When pieced together with what Talis had said before, that he had ‘taken care of’ Karim, it became somewhat clear how it might have happened.

He had likely incapacitated him first, then threw him before an Aravion noble, or killed him and used lightning magic to leave marks on the corpse.

After the conversation ended, Talis came to fetch Aril and bowed deeply to Turan.

"So, were you satisfied with the conversation?"

"Of course, Grandfather. It felt as vivid as if I had spoken with my father directly. Thank you."

"I’m glad to hear that, Head of House Parsha. Though we were unable to spend your childhood together, I hope we can continue to build a steady relationship as grandfather and grandson."

Talis maintained a respectful demeanor while simultaneously playing the role of the doting grandfather.

Disgusted by his repugnant behavior, Turan replied with a smile as expressionless as an iron mask.

‘He truly is something else. On the surface, anyone would think he's overflowing with goodwill toward me...’

What was more astonishing, somehow, was that Talis's body even exuded the scent of genuine emotion, as if he truly felt joy in meeting Turan.

This went beyond controlling one's emotions to mask their scent; it reached the level of mimicking fake emotions entirely.

This level of acting skill could truly be called godlike.

Had Turan not just heard from Haroon that the Zahar gods, including Talis, wanted to eliminate him as a threat, he might have mistakenly believed Talis held some genuine affection for him.

Wasn't it that even the recent joint attack by House Carmine and House Ruvan was arranged by Talis mediating between the two houses?

Considering the heavy losses that could’ve resulted had Turan not responded aptly at the time, it meant that Talis was now brazenly smiling before the very man he had tried, and failed, to stab in the back.

Even calling him shameless would have been too kind.

‘I’ll be the one to kill you. One day.’

While keeping his smiling face, Turan had to work to keep the deep, sharpened intent to kill, refined within him, from manifesting in his scent.

*

The following day, Turan held another meeting with Haroon, who had regained some strength.

This time, the meeting was not closed off like the previous one, but held in a format where other nobles could also listen.

The topic was, as expected, Berit’s status.

Originally brought in to serve as the partner to the Head of House Parsha, Berit had suddenly ended up with the Head of House Varaha. Turan remained consistently shameless in his stance on the matter.

"Either way, she stands beside the head of a great noble house. The two of them seem well matched. And considering that Varaha has traditionally been close to Zahar, I’d say this calls for celebration."

"You certainly make it sound easy."

Though the tone of the conversation carried a chilly edge, the dialogue between Turan and Haroon was more akin to a staged dispute.

Much like the war decades ago between Aravion and Zahar.

Osel would occasionally interject with a passing comment, and ironically, that led to Solif being viewed as a lecher who had seduced his friend’s woman.

Turan, glancing several times at his friend disguised as an attendant behind a mask, struggled to suppress his laughter.

After a few rounds of open debate before everyone, the conclusion reached was surprisingly mundane.

Turan would pay a dowry to Varaha in Berit’s stead, acting as her godfather on behalf of Zahar.

Through this arrangement, Zahar would reinforce its ties with Varaha by having the Head of House Parsha as the guardian of Berit, the daughter of the next family head, as originally intended. Turan, in turn, could verbally settle the matter of having disregarded House Zahar's authority in handling the situation.

Of course, it was mildly awkward to become the guardian of a sixth cousin a few years older than himself, but it was all just a formality anyway.

Once all matters were concluded, and the tri-house meeting finally adjourned, everyone began clearing out.

The hastily assembled tents and meeting grounds vanished in the blink of an eye, leaving behind only a desolate plain where a village-sized construction had once stood.

"Well then, I shall take my leave now."

"May your journey be a safe one."

Turan gave a slight nod to Haroon, who waved goodbye as he departed.

An old man who had massacred hundreds of thousands to ensure Turan’s birth.

Considering that, in the game world before he became a god, he used to habitually say that the poor should be thrown into gas chambers, and had earned himself the nickname “Nazi” because of it, it wasn’t all that surprising.

But at the same time, he was also a man who had harbored romantic feelings for thousands of years toward the god Turan suspected was his own past self.

Turan had yet to decide how exactly he should treat him, but at the very least, he should return the goodwill Haroon had shown.

That was the moral principle of the Golden Rule Turan had learned from his mother since childhood.

As he approached for a final handshake, Haroon leaned in and whispered quietly.

"So, did what I taught you prove useful?"

"Yes, it was helpful."

"That’s good. As I said before, don’t be in too much of a hurry. You’re still young, and you have plenty of time. Badal’s body, on the other hand, doesn’t have much time left, and aside from Meisa, there aren’t many decent candidates. Of course... I don’t really know what that person’s current state is, since it’s been so long since I last saw him."

What Haroon mentioned with a slight frown was naturally the actual leader of the Aravion-Nagin forces, the Biologist.

When Turan had expressed his intention to go after the one behind Meisa’s abuse, Haroon had advised him, as he just had, not to be hasty and to take his time.

He’d also added that the internal structure of House Nagin was so tightly guarded that even he had failed to grasp its details.

"Let me say one last thing: be happy. Life is not meaningful just by living, but by being happy. If you lose that happiness blinded by revenge, then you’d be better off not pursuing it at all."

He had the look of someone gazing at a long-lost love.

Turan instinctively knew that the person Haroon was referring to was not him.

Having spoken his final words to his beloved, Haroon climbed into the massive camel-drawn carriage and disappeared from view.