Shepherd Wizard-Chapter 165.1

Translator: Pai_

Not long after the House Zahar departed, Osel also left a farewell message and led his army southward.

Unless something special happened, it wouldn't be easy to meet him like this again in the future.

Perhaps they might never see each other again for the rest of their lives.

On the way back, someone poked Turan in the side as he was lost in thought while riding his Magical Beast.

"Why do you look so gloomy?"

The finger belonged to Solif, who was following him disguised as an attendant.

The knights escorting them had kept a slight distance so that their voices wouldn't be overheard, making his tone the same as usual.

"Just... a lot to think about."

The conversation with Haroon had given Turan a lot to ponder.

From practical concerns to metaphysical ones like the existence of the self, topics he normally wouldn't even glance at.

Seeing him like that, Solif spoke with a look of disbelief.

"Don't overthink it. If they act obediently, leave them alone. If they cause bullshit, beat them down. Simple, right?"

"That's nice and easy for you."

Of course, contrary to Solif's words, it wasn't such a simple matter to predict how Zahar would act.

While it's true that Haroon, as the Family Head, was suppressing the house with authority, that method wouldn't work on other gods like it does with ordinary nobles.

If, due to some incident, he lost his body, Talis would rule over Zahar until he obtained a proper one again.

Of course, the odds of Haroon suddenly dying were slim, he was only around sixty years old in human terms...

'But you never know. Who knows what tricks they might pull.'

Though it was unclear how many possessed bodies of gods currently existed in Zahar, if all of them combined their strength, even Haroon wouldn’t be safe.

Once he was killed and turned into a soul, inserting the soul into a possessed body again would require a living person to do it. If the one responsible refused, there would be nothing he could do, no matter how powerful he was in life.

Naturally, a Zahar without its Family Head wouldn’t be as threatening, but it would be a serious problem if they were stabbed in the side during a fight against the House Aravion-Nagin or House Carmine or the Great Sea Serpent.

Even just having their every move spied on through Zahar’s unique concealment and tracking abilities would be horrendously troublesome.

As a truly horrific example, if someone were to steal a single strand of hair from Turan’s future child and send it to Zahar, Turan would be rendered powerless from that day on.

The moment he left the child's side, there was no telling who might secretly approach.

"More importantly, congratulations. You've officially become a womanizer recognized by three Great Noble Houses."

“Damn it.”

Solif grimaced at Turan's joke, which he had made to dispel the unpleasant thoughts.

The topic that came up the most during this meeting was him.

A villain who took away the woman sent as the House Parsha Family Head’s lover, a womanizer who coveted his friend’s lover.

Not only were there plenty of witnesses at the meeting, but with the stories bound to spread by word of mouth, it wouldn't be long before the infamous reputation of Solif Varaha spread across the world.

A love scandal among the heads of great noble houses, what more intriguing topic could there possibly be?

Solif let out a deep sigh and soon shook his head.

“Well, I don’t care what the others blabber about. The only thing that matters is the truth.”

When Reshion had formed his personality in the past in order to easily take possession of his body, Solif had to act like a stiff person who was obsessed with etiquette and conscious of others' gazes.

Perhaps as a reaction to that, ever since he was liberated, he deliberately maintained the attitude of "Who cares what others think, as long as I’m happy."

"Forget all that. I just hope, if I ever have a kid, it doesn't have the Zahar bloodline. The idea of letting them raise the child is horrifying even to imagine."

"Ah."

Come to think of it, that tradition did exist.

When a child is born between the two families, the family the child belongs to is decided not by whether the father or mother is from that family, but by the bloodline.

As he had recently learned, it was a bad custom created by the gods to make it easier to utilize soul magic, but it had also become a deeply entrenched notion in the minds of all wizards.

No matter how much Solif doted on his child, if he were to raise a Zahar bloodline child in House Varaha, it would inevitably spark a major controversy.

"Can’t I just forcefully raise the child?"

"Not a chance. Not only would Zahar immediately demand the child back, but even your underlings wouldn't sit quietly."

While clicking his tongue in regret, Turan was secretly relieved that his own child would be much freer from such controversy.

Even if the child were born with the Storm Bloodline, they were at war with House Aravion anyway.

If there came a time when the two families talked of peace, it would be after Badal's death and once Meisa became the head of House Aravion, so there was no need to worry about that either.

"Speaking of which, you and Meisa might have a child someday too. Can I be the godfather?"

"Well, sure."

"Given the situation, it might not happen right away, but I hope it does within thirty years."

At Solif’s words, Turan paused for a moment instead of answering immediately.

A small hesitation that others might have overlooked.

But having traveled together with him for years and grown used to him, Solif didn’t miss it.

"...What? Why are you reacting like that?"

"Mm."

"Don’t tell me... already?"

"It just kind of happened."

He could have lied as much as he wanted, but there was no need to do that when it was just the two of them.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t told Solif because he lacked trust.

Surprised by the unexpected truth, Solif stared blankly for a moment, then mumbled in a low voice.

"No way, with the kind of magic power you two have, the chances of pregnancy should’ve been really low, so how-"

"We got lucky."

Just as Solif had said, when two nobles with strong magical power were in a relationship, the chances of pregnancy were significantly lower than for ordinary people.

Even though all nobles desired strong offspring, this was why they often had concubines from commoner or knight backgrounds.

Children born between nobles had far greater potential, but if unlucky, pregnancy might not occur for decades.

Of course, that varied case by case, and there were instances like Melo and Ashiz, noble siblings born close in age to each other.

Still, for Turan and Meisa to have succeeded in getting pregnant within just a few months despite having taken measures for contraception, this was an astonishing probability.

"Wait, you kept this a secret from me?"

"It's not that I kept it a secret, there was no opportunity to tell you. You were at Varaha the whole time until this trip."

"You should’ve told me on the way here!"

One of the reasons Turan hadn’t told Solif was because he had been staying in Varaha until just before this trip.

However, he did have the opportunity to bring it up while they were traveling for the meeting, so why hadn’t he?

"It just felt kind of awkward to bring it up."

"What? Why?"

"Just…"

Since pregnancy obviously required that process, announcing that Meisa was pregnant was essentially the same as declaring that he and Meisa had done such things. When he put it that way, Solif was momentarily at a loss for words.

To Turan, it was quite a serious issue.

For that reason, even when he informed the few who absolutely needed to know, like Ashiz, it had been unbearably embarrassing.

A few seconds later, Solif, who had been holding it in, burst into uncontrollable laughter and fell off his horse.

"Hey."

"Puhahaha, ah, please… I swear I’m going to die… What are you, a child... Well, I guess you are a child..."

The surrounding wizards, who had been escorting them, looked on in confusion as the attendant following the Family Head suddenly fell off his horse laughing.

"Are you alright, Family Head? Is something wrong...?"

"Nothing to worry about. Keep watching the surroundings."

"Yes, sir!"

Startled by the Family Head’s chilly tone, they quickly backed off again.

A moment later, Solif, having calmed down, wiped his tears and got back on his horse before speaking.

"Ah, seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever laughed this hard in my life."

"What’s so funny?"

"The fact that the perfect superhuman who can do anything and shows no emotion suddenly started acting like a twenty-year-old boy. I laughed so hard I almost died."

Compared to the sexually strict commoners and knights, nobles were far more liberal when it came to such matters.

Because they were the ones who chose, not the ones being chosen.

As such, Turan's admission that he felt embarrassed about announcing his relationship with a woman who was essentially his partner was not just funny but even delightful.

At that moment, as he continued chuckling, Solif suddenly spoke in a serious tone.

"Well, even so, it’s nice."

"What is?"

"Seeing your human side. Not that it’s a sudden change or anything, but sometimes, you seemed distant."

Turan recalled what Solif had said just before.

The perfect superhuman who could do anything and showed no emotion.

He’d never thought of himself that way, but perhaps that’s how others viewed him.

After all, Turan did control his emotions better than most and possessed exceptional talent in many fields.

And over the past few months, as the Family Head of House Parsha, he had deliberately acted that way even more.

"When all you ever show is perfection and excellence, it naturally creates distance. Sure, distance has its place for someone in a high position, but when it comes to friends or family, it’s different. Sometimes, flaws are what make someone truly human."

"Flaws make someone human… I think I’ve heard that before."

"Who said it?"

"Probably Reshion."

"That bastard said that?"

At the mention of Reshion’s name, Solif scowled.

Though now he was just a prisoner spilling all sorts of information, there was a time when Reshion had been in a position to claim Solif’s body, and that made him someone Solif could never bring himself to like.

"Come to think of it, didn't I tell you this before? When I asked why you wore a leash."

"Ah, right… I think you said something like that back then…”

Most likely, the words Solif had just spoken were an unconscious echo of what he had heard at that time.

According to Reshion, the first-generation wizards born from the gods had been truly overwhelming beings.

Each one was born with the magic power of a knight-level from the moment they came into the world, and upon reaching adulthood, they possessed the magic power of mid to high-tier nobles even without absorbing additional magic power.

But all of them shared a critical flaw in personality, above all, they did not view humans as human beings.

Just like Onil had done in the past, they would beat humans to death out of boredom or use them as toys for all kinds of brutal games.

"The strong find it hard to understand the weak. Someone who has never known heat or cold, pain or fatigue from birth can’t grasp the hardships of ordinary people or empathize with them..."

Modern wizards may be no different from ordinary people when they’re very young, but to those born as superhumans from the start, humans must have looked no different from bugs.

Creatures that would burst apart with a mere flick of the hand.

From Reshion’s words, that humans could be infinitely cruel to those they couldn’t empathize with as fellow beings, Turan could sense his identity as a White Elf persecuted by humans.

Of course, the White Elves had also abused and preyed upon humans as another species, so they weren’t exactly innocent either.

“So if the child is born, I’m not planning to remove the leash right away. I’ll try to focus on discipline, but… if I take it off before the personality is fully formed and there’s a side effect, that’d be a disaster.”

“Would that really be better? I actually felt uneasy and wanted to take it off right away if I had a kid. Maybe I’ll ask my parents how they raised me…”

Solif’s parents, the Varaha couple, had returned from their hideout in the western wasteland to the main Varaha house not long after Solif rose to the position of Family Head.

Naturally, as the Family Head’s parents, they no longer stayed in a villa in Helio City like before, but took residence within the Temple of the Sun.

Just as the two of them were about to shift the conversation toward the child’s future education methods, someone riding ahead shouted out.

“We’ve arrived! The city wall is in sight!”

Sure enough, beyond the distant horizon, the walls of Kalamaf began to appear.

With the long journey finally ending, everyone erupted into cheers.

***