Shepherd Wizard-Chapter 180.1

Translator: Pai_

"Lockdown? I’m not too sure, but it’s probably been about five days. Maybe a bit longer."

Having left the clothing store, Turan headed straight to the inn lined with carriages and skillfully slipped into a group of merchants who were drinking.

As they shared a glass each of the desert region’s notoriously strong date palm liquor, a young merchant with a flushed face started babbling.

"A week... and no one knows what’s going on?"

"That’s right. Well, maybe those folks over there with some money might know something."

The young merchant pointed in the direction of the merchants’ guild.

While poor peddlers like them stayed in inns like these, the large merchant groups who dealt with rare and high-volume goods used separate accommodations built just for them.

If you rest among the crowd, you never know what might get stolen.

"Is there any way to speak with those folks?"

"Who knows? Maybe if you take something rare to them, they might listen..."

"Ah, I see. Thanks."

After gathering just enough information, Turan drank his share, left some money, gently pushed off the merchant who clung to him begging for more drinks, and left the inn.

'Blocking off passage completely...'

It was clear that something was going on inside Zahar.

It was the right move to stop by this city and gather information.

Had he not done that, he would’ve walked straight into Axum and been caught while wandering around carelessly.

Afterward, Turan hid himself in an alleyway, then flew back toward Axum City.

Before long, green fields and a massive lake appeared like something out of a fairy tale, along with sand-colored walls surrounding this verdant land.

'This is...'

The base of House Zahar, the capital city Axum.

Unlike other cities in the Enril Desert, which barely reached a population of a hundred thousand due to chronic water shortages, this was a metropolis that alone could house several hundred thousand people.

Around the outskirts of the massive city, mounted guards with swords patrolled, their eyes gleaming menacingly.

As if they would not tolerate anyone passing through.

Of course, they couldn’t detect Turan, who had absorbed Bije into his body and was leisurely flying using wind magic.

'The atmosphere of the city is quite bad. Though it’s to be expected.'

The markets and streets that should’ve been bustling were eerily quiet.

Sure, there were people moving around because the city was large and people needed to make a living, but they all wore grim expressions.

This was natural since cities were essentially like living organisms.

Shutting down a city was akin to skipping meals for a person, and for such a metropolis to do that for five days, starvation was inevitable.

From the look of things, though, no one had starved to death yet, and the blockade would probably be lifted soon.

Of course, by then, House Zahar would have finished hiding whatever they wanted to keep secret.

As he wandered around the outskirts, Turan furrowed his brow when he noticed a damaged part of the city.

Even estimating conservatively, the destruction spanned several hundred meters, proving that powerful wizards had clashed here.

'This is?'

Some of the traces were even quite familiar.

It was likely that the same kind of weapon Haroon Zahar used during the past duel had left marks like these.

As a skilled wizard, Turan could roughly guess which spells had been used just from the uncleaned remnants.

It was only a possibility, but those who fought here had probably used not just ordinary magic but skills as well.

'I'd like to hear more about what happened here...'

Turan found a market relatively close to the site of the battle and quietly observed a few merchants until he spotted his target.

A peddler selling dried provisions.

After confirming that the peddler had sold dried meat powder to a customer dressed similarly to Turan, likely a wanderer, Turan stole a bit of money, disguised his face, and appeared from the alley.

"Excuse me."

"Hmm?"

"I’m the one who bought the meat powder earlier, but I think I accidentally underpaid, so I came back."

"Really? I was pretty sure I got the right amount..."

The peddler looking down at his money box exclaimed, "Ah!"

Since there weren’t many transactions today, the money was easy to verify at a glance, and it was obvious that two silver coins were missing.

"There really is money missing?"

“Here you go.”

When Turan handed over the money he had stolen earlier, the peddler looked at him in admiration and said,

“Huh, in all my life, I’ve never met someone as honest as you. If someone walked away with unpaid goods, nine out of ten people would just call themselves lucky and move on.”

“Well, that wouldn’t be right. The Night Hunter is always watching over us, after all.”

Turan traced a sacred emblem with his hand as if he were devout, and the peddler followed suit with a similar gesture.

Having broken the ice that way, Turan glanced at the scene of devastation nearby and gestured with his chin as he asked,

“Still, that looks terrifying no matter how many times I see it.”

He didn’t bother asking what it was, since even a wanderer couldn’t possibly be unaware of the reason behind such an incident.

At the very least, it had happened within the five days Axum had been on lockdown. Even if someone in the area hadn’t seen it with their own eyes, they should’ve at least heard about it from others.

As expected, the peddler nodded knowingly at Turan’s implied understanding.

“It truly was... I couldn’t even sleep that night. Thunder kept booming, buildings were collapsing, I thought the devils of Aravion had invaded.”

Though Turan showed no reaction outwardly, he was quite surprised inside.

Why would Aravion suddenly come up here?

Or maybe the man mistook the sound of gunfire for thunder.

To ignorant merchants, there probably wasn’t much of a difference between the two.

“Did you happen to see it yourself?”

“I didn’t witness it directly, only heard about it. I was fast asleep.”

“Huh, you managed to sleep through all that noise?”

“Well, I was pretty drunk…”

When Turan deliberately acted bashful, the peddler burst out laughing.

While similar cultural values existed in other regions, for the men of Enril, being weak to alcohol was considered embarrassing.

“If someone actually saw it happen, would they be able to tell me the details? I’ve been curious about what went down, but haven’t met anyone who was actually there.”

“My house is a bit further away, so I didn’t see it myself either, but I still felt something. Bright flashes like midday in the dead of night, and later, even purple lightning.”

“Oh-ho.”

While they were chatting, Turan suddenly sensed someone approaching rapidly from behind.

He intentionally didn’t turn his gaze, but the peddler noticed the presence first and quickly bowed his head in haste.

“W-Well then, I’ve received the payment. You can go now.”

“Mm.”

As Turan nodded and turned around, a woman in a white ceremonial robe embroidered with intricate patterns was looking at him.

Realizing she was one of the knights of Zahar, Turan immediately bowed deeply. She gave him a brief glare, then walked deeper into the market.

“Hey, you lot! What are you doing, chatting like that? If you’re here to trade, then do it quickly!”

Her sharp scolding made it clear that even people gathering to talk in this area was being suppressed.

The reason was obviously to control the spread of the very kind of information Turan had just heard.

Slipping back into an empty alley and changing his face again, Turan recalled what he’d just heard.

'Did Badal come here himself... or was it someone with Badal’s sacred relic?'

Badal Aravion.

Father of Meisa, and the family head of House Aravion. That old man’s long hammer wielded the power of violet lightning.

Gripped by deepening curiosity, Turan looked toward the mountain slightly north of Axum City, and the fortress seated atop it.

The answers likely lay within that place.

'The Red Fortress...'

Unlike the outer walls of Axum City, this fortress built of dark red bricks was the very heart of House Zahar.

According to Berit, this was a location even more obsessively protected against infiltration than the main house of House Parsha.

Of course, when it came to which between Aravion and Zahar could more easily prevent infiltration by concealed wizards, it had to be Zahar.

While Aravion could only build its defense system imagining what the opponent might try to do, Zahar had the advantage of designing, attempting to breach, and then reinforcing its own defense system directly.

'If I had known I’d have to come this far in, I would’ve asked Berit about a way to sneak in.'

Even if something had happened, Turan never imagined they would go so far as to shut down Axum itself and act in such a thoroughly closed-off manner. That was his mistake.

Still, going back now to ask would mean losing two whole days, so he had no choice but to find a solution on the spot.

While concealed, Turan slowly approached the Red Fortress and shuddered at the overwhelming magical energy radiating from the outer wall.

It was clear the entire wall was infused with some mysterious power, almost like a sacred relic.

Just like the Temple of the Sun, the stronghold of House Varaha.

'Though it doesn't emit light that reveals concealment like that place.'

At the very least, tunneling in underground would obviously be futile.

Wondering whether he could sneak in using disguise, Turan tried to approach and clicked his tongue upon seeing the inspection process required to enter the fortress.

“Name?”

The person attempting to enter the fortress appeared to be a servant delivering provisions, and when the knight in charge of inspection asked, instead of speaking out loud, the servant wrote his answer in charcoal on the iron plate in front of him.

Seeing this, the knight nodded and proceeded to ask for birthplace and favorite food, then let him pass.

'There’s no way to get through that.'

Making people write instead of speak was probably meant to prevent others from eavesdropping from afar.

The answers were likely pre-prepared and memorized.

Normally, such a process would be a ridiculous waste of administrative resources, but this wasn’t a normal situation.

With the entire city under strict control, very few people were allowed in or out of the fortress.

Turan clicked his tongue again and gave up on the idea of passing through the inspection, frustrated at the security system that seemed modeled entirely after the ability of the Mimic Sacred Relic.

'The hidden route... there is one Berit told me about, but if Berit knows it, the enemy probably does too.'

Back when they infiltrated the Temple of the Sun to extract Solif’s parents, they had used a secret passage that only someone in line to inherit House Varaha would know.

Turan circled the fortress walls, lost in thought, unable to come up with any viable method of breaking in.

'Aerial infiltration is no good, and tunneling underground... probably won’t work either, considering what those walls are made of.'

The truth behind that dark red fortress was that it had been built using the bones of giants who were slain by the Night Hunter in ancient times.

To be precise, it was said that the bricks were molded by mixing bone powder with ash and stone.

Turan had even seen with his own eyes that the remaining flesh had turned into the monsters in the underground labyrinth.

There was no way to know if that story was true, of course, but it was certain that the Red Fortress’s defensive capability was on par with that of the Temple of the Sun, meaning breaking in using ordinary means was nearly impossible.

Maybe a full-power railgun could pierce it, but that would only summon every Zahar noble in the region due to the shockwaves alone.

'What do I do...'

He was stuck in thought for a long moment when suddenly an idea popped into Turan’s head.

If it was made from giants' bones, that meant it wasn’t a natural mineral but part of a living being.

And Turan possessed a substance that could gnaw through living matter with terrifying precision.

The Water of Death, a substance the gods called hydrochloric acid.

What had Solif said when looking at this substance that was difficult to use due to its excessive aggressiveness?

'If you pour this on a person, not even bones would remain.'

Now was the time to find out if that was true.

***