Shepherd Wizard-Chapter 174.2

Translator: Pai_

For the next ten minutes or so, they either eliminated the escaping nobles of Ruvan or captured them as prisoners upon their surrender.

Finally, the allied forces of the two houses arrived at the residence of the family head, located at the center of the stronghold.

Only by occupying this place and executing the head of House Ruvan could the war be said to have truly ended.

“He didn’t run, did he?”

“No. Not that he would’ve had time to escape anyway...”

Thanks to the power of the Mimic Sacred Relic, Turan was able to tell that the head of Ruvan had remained holed up inside the stronghold from the beginning, not moving at all.

Was it because he had set some kind of elaborate trap? Or did he not even have the energy to run?

As they cleared out the last of the remaining Ruvan nobles and entered, it became clear that it was the latter.

“Hello, we meet again. Looks like you're not doing so well?"

"I can't say it's a pleasure."

To Solif’s sarcastic remark, Calais, the new head of House Ruvan, looked at them with a forced smile.

When Solif had previously said he had stabbed him a few times, Turan thought it was just bluffing, but looking at him now, it didn’t seem so.

From his barely upright posture to the smell of blood wafting from the bandages, it was clear.

If a wizard with family-head-level magic power could barely move like that, he must have been on death’s doorstep when injured.

Well, if he hadn’t been injured that badly, Berit wouldn’t have stood by and watched while Solif was dying.

Compared to the half-dead Calais, Turan and Solif were in perfect condition.

At most, they had captured or killed five or six of the top-ranking Ruvan nobles they encountered along the way, so there wasn’t even significant magic power loss.

After confirming that the others had stepped back to prepare for the battle between gods, Turan asked Calais a question.

“Will you surrender?”

“Can I ask first if you’ll spare me if I do?”

"If there's a way to get back that body's original owner, there's no reason we couldn't spare you."

Personally, Turan felt Calais wasn’t a particularly bad person and wanted to save him if he could.

And if that were possible, it could mean a way to save others currently ruled by other god tribe members.

At Turan’s words, Calais’s eyes gleamed slyly, as if he had grasped a shred of hope for life.

“Well, it’s not impossible. Of course, it’s a bit difficult, but...”

“Then it’s not possible. Too bad.”

“What?”

At the tone that cut him off so decisively, Calais wore a dumbfounded expression.

Of course, Turan had been able to say so definitively because he had activated the Eye of Truth.

That mouth was leaking the color of foul lies. How dare he try to deceive them?

The attack began even before Calais could finish his question.

As before, Solif’s Sun Cloak, wrapped in white flames, transformed into a spear and struck. As Calais barely managed to block it, Turan’s attack followed.

A skill from the Storm Bloodline, Wind Blade.

With a slicing sound, his trapezius muscle was deeply cut and blood spilled out.

“Wait, just...!”

Even as he cried out urgently, Calais immediately summoned the fusion of four bloodlines.

Fighter, Guardian, Berserker, and the form of a screaming woman.

As the four symbols combined, Calais opened his mouth wide and let out a scream.

“Oh, wow, it actually got blocked?”

Solif chuckled as if it were amusing.

Calais’s scream had failed to spread beyond his immediate surroundings and had no effect on either of them.

That was because Turan had used wind magic to block the very movement of air, the medium through which sound travels.

Of course, if Turan had simply tried to block it head-on, the superiority inherent to skills over regular magic would have pierced through. But instead, he used a small trick to stop it.

Rather than completely blocking the sound, he redirected it far up into the sky.

Presumably, if there were a bird flying high up in the sky at that moment, it would have been struck down by the unexpected sonic attack.

“Grrgh-!”

Even if his ultimate attack failed, Calais could not afford to fall into despair.

Suppressing the pain with a skill, he launched a surprise assault on Turan with impressive strength and reflexes. But as soon as the shining gauntlet struck his body, he staggered, and his form dispersed as if fading away.

“...A substitution clone?”

It was clearly one of the assassin-class skills.

“Kh!”

Solif didn’t miss the opening and, using his transformed Sun Cloak in the shape of a whip, sliced off both of Calais’s hands.

Ruvan’s prized Sacred Relic, Roar of the Dragon, fell from his body.

Before he even had time to groan at the overwhelming sense of helplessness, Turan sprang up from beneath where the clone had disappeared and created Light of Judgement, wrapping it around Calais’s neck.

*

[“To all wizards of House Ruvan! Your leader is dead! Surrender now! I repeat! The wizards of House Ruvan-”]

In the heart of the battlefield filled with roaring flames, flickering flashes, the blasts of firearms and thunder.

Turan’s voice, amplified by wind magic, retained enough authority to resonate even in that chaotic space.

The wizards of House Ruvan, upon hearing it, felt their hands drop involuntarily, and then, upon seeing the body floating in the center of the family head’s residence far off in the distance, completely lost their will to fight.

Even though all of House Ruvan’s members trained relentlessly, a figure over two meters tall with such an overwhelmingly muscular physique was not common.

“The Family Head...”

“Goddamn it.”

Those with enough sense had already suspected this outcome.

There were dozens of Varaha nobles; there was no way their family head wasn’t among them. And judging by the loud explosion from earlier, the House Parsha family head must have come as well.

Even in perfect health, it would have been nearly impossible to fight against two family heads of major noble houses, and no one was unaware that Calais had been seriously wounded.

The fierce noises from the direction of the family head’s residence a short while ago had surely been the sound of their battle.

“Now, everyone who surrenders, wear this! Any Ruvan wizard not wearing this will be considered hostile and executed!”

The wizards of Parsha and Varaha thus made the surrendering individuals wear handcuff-shaped magic artifacts.

They were the type of magic devices that suppressed the magic power of those bound.

They weren’t as luxurious as the chains used by those who had previously tried to subdue Solif, so those of highest noble rank could have resisted them. But most of Ruvan’s top nobles had already died in this battle.

As the surviving Ruvan wizards, wearing those restraints with helpless expressions, gathered in the central plaza, Turan and Solif searched the family head’s residence for anything of use.

“First, we need to find where their soul anchor is.”

“Probably underground. I’ve never seen them use any place other than underground for something like that.”

Indeed, the underground was the safest place from external interference.

If such a space was made on the surface, it would inevitably be discovered in one way or another.

While Solif ordered the knights who had come with them to gather and analyze all useful documents, Turan entered the jewel box with a few trusted Parsha nobles standing guard by his side.

[Hello? Ah, come to think of it, I guess this isn’t exactly a pleasant reunion.]

Just like the Varaha half-elves led by Reshion, the half-elves of Ruvan also had pale, distorted appearances.

Unlike before, Turan summoned them all together in one place and got straight to the point.

He demanded they tell him where their soul anchor was

located.

[...Why should we tell you that?]

[Because if you don’t, I’ll tear you apart.]

Just like he had done with Jemel in the past, shaking Cadrum’s soul fragment a few times proved to be quite effective.

However, unlike before, Turan couldn't get an answer right away, now that he looked closely, they were all glancing nervously at Calais.

[Seems like you were playing the leader role pretty well, addict.]

[You, you really are Otas-]

[Think what you want. So, since everyone’s clearly wary of you, should I dispose of you first?? I mean, once I absorb the soul fragment, I can just peek into the memories anyway. Not that I like the idea.]

Of course, in reality, absorbing a soul fragment was far more unpleasant and dangerous than one might expect, so Turan had no intention of actually doing it.

He just needed to fake it, pretend to absorb one and tear a few apart, and someone among the rest would break and talk.

From experience, these so-called gods didn't usually have much backbone.

As Turan slowly approached Calais’s soul form, one of the other half-elves suddenly screamed out.

[I’ll tell you! I’ll talk, just don’t hurt him!]

[Bartelessina!]

[I’m sorry, Prince. But how could I stand by and watch you get hurt?]

Turan watched their exchange with some confusion.

From experience, he had learned that this so-called Preah God Tribe operated with a rather horizontal hierarchy.

There might be relationships of power arising from gaps in strength or knowledge, but since they'd lived together for thousands of years, they regarded each other more as comrades than as master and servant.

He didn’t know for sure, but perhaps this was related to the “democracy” they claimed dominated their world.

Yet something felt off about the formal tone, the use of the term “prince”, it didn’t feel like something a god would say.

Could it be...?

[Don’t tell me... Are you ones where the White Elf side outweighed the human side in your essence?]

All the half-elves flinched visibly at his words.

So that was it. That’s where the difference with the Varaha side lay.

But why? What exactly made the two so different?

Harboring such questions, Turan lightly jabbed the soul form that had just spoken with the hilt of his sword.

[Ahk!]

[Didn’t you say you’d talk? Start talking. Otherwise, your prince here is going to be torn apart.]

[No, please...]

Calais, or more precisely, the self-proclaimed White Elf prince occupying his body, muttered in desperation. But the half-elf called Bartelessina soon confessed the truth.

It was located in an underground cave about one hundred kilometers north of Slon.

Compared to Varaha, who had created a secret space through spatial transfer, it was pathetically modest.

Of course, they had taken some measures to protect the interior, but still.

[I’ll go check. If it’s true, I’ll spare you for now.]

[Wait-]

Ignoring whatever Calais was about to say, Turan locked each of the Ruvan half-elves in separate prisons and returned to his physical body.

Without his permission, they would no longer be able to speak a word to each other.

“Found it.”

“Where is it?”

“They physically hid it quite far away. I’ll be back soon. There’s not much time.”

“Ah, right. Be careful.”

Despite all the precautions they’d taken, the Parsha stronghold located in Kalamaf was now in a critically weakened state of defense.

There were many urgent things to do, such as returning and reestablishing the connection with the Jade Mirror to bring back the army.

More importantly, Turan had to return within three or four days to be able to share the magic power from Calais’s corpse with Meisa.

There was also the option of waiting for the undead transformation and defeating him again, but doing so wouldn’t make the absorbable magic power any stronger, and the risk of dealing with a stronger-than-alive Calais wasn't worth it.

After ordering the Parsha wizards to follow Solif’s lead, Turan rode on Bije and flew straight north for a dozen or so minutes.

Finally, he saw the mountain that the long-named half-elf had described.

For Bije, a hundred kilometers was nothing, it was a distance she could cover in that amount of time even while carrying Turan.

“This must be it.”

As Turan circled around the mountain peak, it wasn’t long before he spotted a cave from above.

From the entrance, the place was rigged with all kinds of defensive systems using magical devices with barrier effects, so elaborate, it only looked more suspicious.

But to Turan, who had already heard all the secrets for breaching it, the defenses were meaningless.

Of course, even without knowing the methods, he could’ve easily broken through with force.

How many barriers and specialized defenses had he confidently broken through?

After piercing the final barrier, Turan furrowed his brow at the unfamiliar presence he sensed from the opposite side.

‘This is...’

A presence similar to humans, but slightly different.

It was reminiscent of the Dark Elves he had sensed before, but also somewhat distinct from that.

Could it be?

The moment he stepped inside and faced them, Turan understood why Calais had screamed so desperately to stop him from coming here.

“Human?”

“It’s a human!”

“How did a human get here?”

“Could it be the prince sent him...?”

A race with unnaturally white skin completely different from human white skin, like marble, and ears that were vertically elongated.

Before his eyes stood a group of White Elves, beings that might be the last of their kind in this world.

*****

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