Shepherd Wizard-Chapter 166.1

Translator: Pai_

Not long after the army of House Parsha returned to Kalamaf, stories about the meeting of the three great noble houses began to spread, starting from the Gray Zone and radiating outward.

Naturally, as is often the case with such rumors, the content became layered with exaggerations over the truth.

People said that House Zahar and House Parsha had gone head-to-head in a full-blown confrontation, or that the heads of the two great houses had beaten each other bloody, requiring the Lavitas to mediate between them.

However, one thing that all the stories consistently pointed to was that the head of House Parsha had demonstrated strength equal to that of the head of House Zahar and thus earned his respect.

Then there was one more subject that naturally followed.

“Could it be that the head of House Parsha is the strongest wizard in the world?”

“Right. He’s the only one who’s fought the heads of both House Aravion and House Zahar.”

“But still, he’s not that old yet... Wouldn’t it take at least a few more decades?”

“I heard from my cousin that when he killed the head of House Varaha during the Eastern War, he did it in a joint attack with others.”

“Is that because he lacked confidence in his own strength? Probably not, it’s just that it’s easier to win that way.”

Who is the most powerful among the countless wizards in the world?

Even commoners, who had not a speck of magic power and hardly understood what magic truly was, often spoke openly about such topics.

It was not something that could be dismissed as a mere naïve ranking game.

After all, the strength of a wizard directly translated to the power of the faction to which they belonged.

In Kalamaf, in the Gray Zone, in the many reclaimed villages throughout the surrounding forest regions, in the Enril Desert...

The man at the center of everyone’s attention, Turan Parsha, was frowning as he stared down at a stack of densely written documents.

“Tch.”

To think that someone who had recently declared an ambition to conquer the world was now merely doing paperwork.

It was petty and laughable, but unavoidable.

As a newly established great noble house, House Parsha had few trustworthy blood relatives, meaning the family head had to personally make and handle countless decisions.

Even this situation was only manageable because Ashiz, in his role as butler, had recruited former commoner officials of old Kalamaf to share the workload.

Had Turan implemented the same policy as other great houses, where only those of the bloodline could handle family matters, he would have been buried in paperwork filling not just his office but extending into the hallway.

Just as he was about to finish reviewing support measures for fishermen who had retreated from the coastal areas near Ophen City due to a recent ban, the door opened and Ashiz entered.

“All done?”

“Almost. Just this one left... ah, damn no.”

Horribly, Ashiz was holding another stack of documents in his hand.

Turan sighed, but obediently took the documents he handed over and placed them on the desk.

The work he didn’t want to do could end up ruining someone’s life if neglected.

He had only read through the documents briefly when he frowned and spoke.

“Failed again?”

“Yeah. I guess it's not as easy as we thought. They say it’s really hard to control the dosage of that gunpowder stuff.”

Recently, Turan had decided to formally introduce new weapons into the territory governed by House Parsha.

Specifically, firearms that used Spirit of Fire, called gunpowder in the language of the gods.

Even in a world ruled by powerful wizards, firearms had quite a bit of usefulness.

First of all, even ordinary humans, who weren’t wizards, could now handle low-grade magical beasts that were otherwise very difficult to deal with.

In towns like the satellite cities of the distant Western Wastelands, where only one or two knights lived per city, these firearms would be considered treasures.

Instead of scouring the land for magical beasts every day, they could use magic power to supply gunpowder, and gunmen could go around hunting magical beasts.

The beast corpses they brought back would then serve as nourishment to enhance the magic power of young and inexperienced wizards.

And second, in the upcoming great war, this meant the military strength of knights could be significantly reinforced, and even commoners could be used as a combat force.

If proper firearms could be developed, then even if it might not matter to nobles, knights could be severely injured or even killed in the face of coordinated gunfire.

Just like how powerful great nobles still deployed knights in battle, commoners carrying guns might appear insignificant in the eyes of such strong individuals, but they could nonetheless be decisive in determining the outcome from unexpected angles.

This was also one of the reasons why the Spirit of Fire, gunpowder, had not become widespread in this world.

The fallen gods were wary that wizards would recklessly use gunpowder and that strength would come to be measured by technology rather than the degree of magic power.

Even though, as the Biologist had once raged long ago, there were virtually no humans in this world with enough ingenuity to fully apply such things, there was still the concern that someone might use gunpowder to develop weapons of transcendental destructive power, just as had been done in their homeland.

Naturally, the development of such firearms would greatly provoke the hostility of those gods...

‘But almost all the ones left are enemies anyway.’

Aravion, Nagin, Carmine, and Ruvan.

Each of the four great noble houses had made it clear in one way or another that they could not walk the same path with him.

Even Zahar, the only one close to being neutral, was not exactly friendly toward Turan, aside from Haroon.

To this end, Turan had originally begun development based on the steam rifles he had seen used by dwarves in the past, combining it with the knowledge of half-elves, but recently, he had altered the production method.

It was because he had directly witnessed the firearm used by the head of House Zahar, Haroon.

Was the name of that weapon? A musket?

During their match, after firing a single shot, Haroon had simply tilted the handle to create an opening for the bullet to enter, reloading in that manner.

Compared to the muzzle-loading type, which involved pushing bullets down the barrel, it was an absurdly neat and refined mechanism.

Turan had wanted to emulate that, but the document before his eyes presented the grim reality that it was impossible.

“Firearm explosion upon discharge...”

“If the person who conducted the live fire test hadn’t been a noble, they probably would’ve died.”

The biggest problem was the overwhelming explosive power of the gunpowder, the Spirit of Fire.

The moment even a handful, a truly tiny amount, was used as a catalyst to propel a bullet, the firearm would explode with a force too great to withstand.

But if the quantity was reduced too precisely, it sometimes wouldn’t even fire at all...

Moreover, since ordinary people could not generate Ignition Magic inside the gun like knights could, they had to rely on an external flame, which was another problem.

According to the half-elves, substances like mercury and fulminate could be used instead, eliminating that need, but no one knew what those were or how to use them.

“It’d be great if we could make real gunpowder.”

“Real gunpowder? Then the Spirit of Fire is fake?”

“Probably. I’ve never seen the real thing myself, though.”

Not long ago, Turan had overheard one of the half-elves mention one of the secrets behind the Spirit of Fire.

That it was not the real gunpowder from the gods’ original world, but merely resembled black powder in appearance while having entirely different properties.

According to them, real gunpowder didn’t possess the overwhelming explosive power that the Spirit of Fire did.

Because of that, it could be safely distributed in appropriate amounts for use in firearms, but this magically synthesized material, while identical in appearance, was essentially akin to a high-explosive bomb.

The issue was, even if one tried to mix the ingredients without magic, nothing came out of it.

The laws of this world were neither entirely the same as the gods' homeland, nor entirely different.

That subtle disharmony was one of the major culprits blocking the advancement of civilization in this world.

Of course, more important than that was the gods’ ignorance.

'Somehow, none of them seem to be of help.'

As Reshion once confessed, most of the surviving members of the Preah God Tribe were among the younger of the ancient gods.

This was the reason why, after the twilight of the gods who had caused the fall of the Old Empire, this world had failed to develop and remained stagnant.

The older gods, with the knowledge they had, were at least able to raise human civilization, once no better than that of primitive people, to the edge of the medieval era in just a few hundred years. But after they vanished, there was no one left who understood higher-order knowledge, and everything came to a standstill.

Most of the gods who had survived into the present were simply enjoying the conveniences of the advanced world they once lived in, without actually understanding how any of it was made.

Among the native people, who were incapable of inventing anything on their own, even the few gods who remained could only produce vague fragments of knowledge, hardly enough to trigger any dramatic changes.

“Invention really is difficult.”

Muttering this, Turan continued marking up the report and proposed ways to improve the firearm.

It was the result of piecing together various scientific principles he had steadily learned through the Librarian’s tutoring, along with the vague scientific ideas presented by the half-elves.

Had he not possessed a more intense thirst for knowledge than most, combined with powerful magic and the ability to activate the Lavitas Bloodline, it would have been impossible.

In order to handle all his duties, conduct personal training, and continue learning, he could only afford to sleep three or four hours a day on average.

Of course, Meisa also had comparable stamina, and she knew a fair bit herself, though not quite as much…

Recalling how a task he recently delegated to Meisa returned with terrible results, Turan frowned slightly.

‘If the Biologist’s theory is correct, then the fact that I can pursue development like this might itself be proof that I’m somehow special.’

He had once thought that the lack of applied creativity in Meisa and Solif was due to the leash. But even after the leash was gone, they didn’t suddenly become more creative.

Come to think of it, didn’t the Biologist always lament that the people of this world lacked creativity?

If that had been caused by the leash, then ordinary people, who were never subject to it, shouldn’t exhibit the same phenomenon.

As Haroon had suggested, this could also be because Turan possessed the soul of a Night Hunter, making him an entity like the ancient gods.

According to them, he was one of the few 'real' beings in this 'false world'...

“Real, my ass.”

Turan cut off his thoughts with a muttered remark.

If only he and the gods were real, did that mean this vivid world was false?

Meisa, Solif, everyone else, did that include even the child he might one day have?

If someone were to claim all of that was false, Turan would rather declare the claimant to be the false one.

Because this world was everything he had been born into and lived in.

With that renewed resolve, Turan pushed aside the mostly completed firearm improvement plan and pulled out a new document.

The phrase at the top still shimmered with fresh ink, as if it had only just been written:

[Map of the Interior of Frostwind Forest and Infiltration Routes]

Turan flipped through the report from a spy who had brought back internal intelligence from the great noble house that had recently invaded Varaha, House Ruvan.

***