Shepherd Wizard-Chapter 215

Translator: Pai_

Before leaving Kalamaf, Turan visited the secret space within the Temple of the Sun where Luska stayed, one last time.

The fact that he didn’t visit the child often was an intentional move.

Officially, Luska was said to be safely protected at a distant hideout for security reasons.

Naturally, Turan also had to be mindful of others’ eyes, so the only time he could see the child was in the deep of night, when Luska was fast asleep.

“At this rate, he’ll forget what his father looks like, Family Head of House Parsha.”

“I’m ashamed.”

At Rida’s reproach, Turan responded with an embarrassed expression and looked at Luska, who was sleeping soundly.

The baby, just over a month old, had plump cheeks, making his wrinkly newborn appearance seem like a lie, he was adorable.

Confirming once again that the same four symbols as his own resided within the child, Turan checked again to ensure nothing had gone wrong with the spirit form.

Relieved to find nothing amiss, his sigh of relief was short-lived as Rida looked at his face and smiled.

“You look like you have a lot on your mind.”

“Yes, the situation is what it is, after all.......”

Turan didn’t hide the news of the return of the New Age occurring outside from Rida.

If she heard this and said she wanted to return, worried about her family including Osel, then he would have to respect that decision.

Fortunately, however, Rida expressed her intention to continue taking care of Luska here instead of returning to Lavitas.

This was because they had already confirmed through Bije, who was sent to Lavitas, that Osel was holding his ground fairly well and was managing the elemental fairies as best he could.

“I don’t know if it will help ease your worries, but during the spare time I have while caring for the child, I’ve made some personal progress. Would you care to hear about it?”

“If it’s progress, do you mean in regard to soul magic?”

“That’s right.”

Unlike when she used to share knowledge of the Soul Manipulation Technique with Nia, being alone gave her a new perspective.

She said that after spending time researching with others, she had learned much by using that accumulated knowledge to examine her own spirit form.

“What I’ve always wondered was why the lifespan of the soul chain, which is the organ of the soul, changes depending on the physical body. I think I finally understand it to some extent.”

According to Rida, the contents of the soul chain were the nutrients supplied by the body to the soul.

That was why, although the soul chain was an organ of the soul, when one changed bodies, it would be replaced by the remaining resources of the new body.

“Nutrients.......”

“It’s just a guess, but I think it may be related to compatibility due to personality or mastery. Depending on the composition of the soul chain, the power that the soul exerts changes.”

Turan continued to have an in-depth conversation with Rida about the various insights she had gained regarding the soul.

It was an unexpected outcome, considering he had expected research into soul magic to stall while they were isolated here.

However, it wasn’t the right time to continue receiving detailed teachings in this area.

“I hope Meisa returns soon too. A child needs both a father and a mother, after all.”

“That’s why I’m planning to go myself.”

Promising to meet again in the future, Turan finally exchanged a few words with the maids assisting Rida and the child to ensure there were no issues, and then left.

***

Instead of flying northwest on Bije right after leaving Kalamaf, Turan moved along the Old Empire Roads.

First, to secure a transportation route connecting the Gray Zone and the Takein Plains, and second, to check on the condition of the Western Forest Zone, which could be considered the midpoint.

At the very least, a safe land route needed to be secured to allow the return and rotation of the forces that had gone with Meisa toward Aravion.

They couldn’t install a new Jade Mirror just to bring them back, nor could Bije fly nonstop for days to transport them.

'This side is also suffering from those damn Dark Elves running wild again.'

Some of the Dark Elf forces that had once again stirred up trouble in the Western Forest had even invaded as far as Kalamaf.

It was probably because Kalamaf was the city closest to the forest zone within the Gray Zone.

Fortunately, after being repelled several times by guns and magic, they hadn’t set foot there again. It seemed the Gray Zone was now considered by them as a place not worth entering.

Or perhaps it had gained a reputation as a place that was simply too dangerous to approach.

While passing through the ashen lands and entering the lush, rising forest, Turan caught the familiar scent of blood from up ahead.

“Let’s go that way, Bije.”

-Okay!

As Bije skillfully turned in the direction given, after flying for a few dozen seconds, they spotted people being dragged helplessly with their hands tied by ropes.

Leading them, of course, were Dark Elves.

Turan silently observed the despairing expressions on the humans’ faces. But before he could take action, he felt a portion of his power being drawn away.

Bije had borrowed the Symbol of Lightning from him.

-Yap!

Contrary to her rather cute battle cry, the result she produced was anything but cute.

A bolt of lightning suddenly struck from the clear blue sky with a rumbling roar, instantly burning to death a dozen Dark Elves at the front.

“What the!?”

Startled, a Dark Elf necromancer hurriedly summoned multiple undead spirits, but against Bije, it was a meaningless resistance.

A fierce gust of wind sent the necromancer flying along with the spirits shielding him, and with the explosion of a condensed sphere of lightning, he was reduced to ashes, without even a corpse left behind.

-Did I do good?

“You were amazing, but why so suddenly?”

-I thought this was what Turan wanted!

At Bije’s words, Turan patted her head with a proud expression.

In response to the rare compliment, she made a peculiar happy noise.

“Uh.......”

“The, the Dark Elves are dead!”

“We’re saved!”

While the golden eagle basked in the praise, the people, unable to process the sudden turn of events, stood dazed for a moment before bursting into joyful exclamations.

Some even collapsed in tears, overwhelmed with joy.

Then, as Turan descended from the sky riding Bije, they all bowed their heads and cried out together.

“O god of Parsha! Thank you! Truly, thank you!”

God of Parsha, they said.

Despite the cringeworthy title making him frown, Turan loosened the ropes binding them with a simple wave of his hand.

“Do you know who I am?”

“Who would dare not know that the master of the golden eagle is the greatest wizard in this land? I’m from Kalamaf.”

As expected, there was a reason why they recognized him so quickly.

Since the founding of House Parsha, Kalamaf had grown explosively as the capital of the newly rising great noble house, absorbing the surrounding population, yet even so, there were many who left the city.

Due to family matters, job searches, expunging criminal records, or to seek new opportunities through adventure.

Joining the pioneers in the forest zone was likely for one of those reasons as well.

Just like the newly growing city of a great house, a reclaimed land starting from bare earth was also a land of opportunity.

“Do you know what’s going on in this area?”

“I’ll tell you everything I know.”

***

According to those rescued, ever since the return of the New Age, the western forest zone had once again been suffering from attacks by the Dark Elves.

Fortunately, it hadn’t reached the point where all the cities were burned down and villages destroyed as before. There were two main reasons for that.

First, humans were still not in full control of the area.

As they were busy rebuilding the living spaces that had once collapsed, human settlements were more like lines connecting dots, which meant there were fewer chances for clashes with the Dark Elves.

Second, the resurrected former Dark Elf lords were too busy fighting among themselves to pay much attention to the weak humans.

If there had been a great noble house ruling over the forest, they would’ve tried to destroy it first, but the only humans there were the pioneer groups sent to rebuild fallen civilization.

Compared to that, the other resurrected Dark Elf necromancers were far more threatening enemies, so instead of launching full-scale invasions, they were content to occasionally raid nearby human settlements to eat or raise people like livestock.

Of course, for those like the group just being dragged away a moment ago, it was a matter of life or death to experience such misfortune firsthand.

“There are no wizards in the pioneer villages, I take it?”

“They are very rare. There are a few around the old cities, but even among them, almost none are nobles... sometimes the nobles themselves are even killed by necromancers, so they tend to avoid reckless fights.”

The Dark Elves that Bije had just dealt with were mostly commoners, and the necromancer among them was a low-level one that even a few knights could easily hunt down.

To the current Turan, they were nothing more than dust.

However, even such enemies were overwhelmingly powerful threats to these commoners who could not hope to resist.

Turan briefly considered whether he could send the wizards of Kalamaf here, but soon judged that it wasn’t feasible.

There were still groups of Dwarves roaming around within the Gray Zone, and recently, under the mediation of the Honorable Republic, two Dwarven Republics had formed ties with them, prompting the deployment of additional protection forces, so the Parsha army had no forces to spare.

“Do you have somewhere to return to?”

“No, we don’t. We were in the middle of moving deeper into the Gray Zone.”

From what he had confirmed along the way, there were no Dark Elves east of this place all the way to Kalamaf, so as long as they had the necessary travel supplies, they should be able to reach it.

They were just a little short of their destination, should they call it bad luck for getting caught, or good fortune for being saved by him?

Handing over supplies such as food and leather taken from the Dark Elves’ belongings, Turan said,

“When you return, report the current situation to Ashiz, the steward of Kalamaf. At the very least, you’ll be given enough compensation to settle down.”

Encouraging the tearful survivors as they thanked him, Turan soon parted from them and continued westward along the road.

Not long after, he came upon similar scenes multiple times.

He wiped out groups of Dark Elves dragging off humans to use them as food or livestock and rescued the people. At times, he arrived only after the people had already been eaten, finding nothing but bones, and tore the Dark Elves to pieces in retaliation.

Then, one day, he encountered a human settlement.

A wooden stronghold built at a relatively high elevation.

A reconstructed old city where over a thousand people lived, and astonishingly, a noble house ruled over the place.

“We greet the Head of Parsha.”

“Such excessive formality is a burden. You are a lord of this land, not my vassal.”

“Still, how could I dare treat you lightly?”

Kardu, the lord of this city, had originally been a wandering noble who, along with his family, wandered without a place to settle until they happened upon this area during a wave of Dark Elf attacks and managed to take hold of this small city.

Because a noble house was protecting it, the place had developed more quickly than other pioneer settlements, to the point where it was beginning to function like a proper city. Then suddenly, a large number of resurrected Dark Elf necromancers had appeared, isolating them.

“That aside, the fact that the master of Parsha has come here... does it mean House Parsha has begun a campaign to subjugate the Dark Elves?”

“Not yet.”

Turan informed Kardu, who was unable to grasp the full situation due to long isolation, of the current state of the world.

That it wasn’t just the forest zone, but the entire world was suffering from the return of beings from the age of ancient myth.

“Huh......”

Though it was a story too far removed from reality to fully grasp, the one thing clearly conveyed was that there was no one they could rely on for salvation right now, and a gloomy look appeared on Kardu’s face.

Turan turned his gaze to the stronghold spread out beyond the window, and the people living within it, then asked,

“Do you want to save them?”

Unlike earlier, when he maintained the formality of an outsider, his tone now was that of one speaking down.

Sensing what Turan meant, Kardu stiffened his face and nodded.

“Yes. This is the first land I’ve ever had as a wandering noble, and they are my people. I want to protect this place.”

To gain one’s own domain and restore their house, such was the long-held desire of all wandering nobles.

Though Turan couldn't completely sympathize with the sentiment, he understood it well enough, and so he nodded and pulled an item from his large-capacity pouch.

“Here, take this.”

“This is...?”

What Turan handed him was a steam musket.

It was something the Dwarves had offered some time ago, which he had simply kept since there was no immediate need to distribute it in Kalamaf.

Seeing a gun for the first time, Kardu was astonished after hearing Turan’s explanation of its usage and functions.

If what was said was true, it was a truly shocking weapon.

“From what I saw, you have three nobles and eleven knights.”

“Yes. My wife, my daughter, and I are nobles. The knights are my two sons and some relatives.”

“I’ll give you enough of these for all of them to be armed. In return for your loyalty to me, I’ll grant you the right to use these weapons to drive out the Dark Elves nearby and build up your territory.”

This was an idea that had come to him when he saw the rescued migrants earlier.

If he didn’t have enough hands to personally save them one by one and couldn’t mobilize troops from the Gray Zone, then he would have the people of this land drive out the Dark Elves themselves.

Of course, it would be impossible to defeat powerful Dark Elf lords with steam muskets, but those kinds of major threats were ones Turan could personally deal with by taking off their heads.

“According to the old rules, House Parsha doesn’t have the right to rule over regions outside the Gray Zone... but all rules change with the times. I trust you understand what I mean.”

“Of course.”

At Turan’s words, Kardu immediately expressed his willingness to submit.

Had this been a peaceful era, he wouldn’t have tried to come under Turan’s authority.

After all, no one wants someone above them giving orders if they can help it.

In fact, even after the founding of House Parsha, the noble houses of the western forest zone had long had subtle tensions with Parsha.

They had prematurely assumed that designating the far western edge of the Gray Zone as the capital was a veiled intention to rule over both territories, including the forest.

But in this wretched time, when different races ran rampant and great noble houses were waging war, such distinctions were meaningless.

Communities that had already fallen to the Dark Elves would no doubt have taken the same opportunity without hesitation if it had been presented to them.

***

Turan provided Kardu with twenty steam muskets in exchange for signing a vassal contract.

He gave plenty, just in case some were damaged and became unusable.

Though this steam musket had fallen out of favor compared to the firearms currently being produced in Kalamaf due to some inconveniences, it still had several notable advantages.

It didn’t require gunpowder and could be used simply by replenishing water, and manufacturing ammunition didn’t require precise technical skill.

The system worked by firing roughly rounded metal lumps using steam pressure.

From then on, Turan continued westward, moving in a zigzag pattern along the road connecting Kalamaf to the Takein Plains, supplying weapons in exchange for oaths of loyalty from several notable communities along the way.

Most of these communities met Turan’s standards, those who didn’t value their lands or people had long since fled on their own.

As a result, there were times when he had to distribute weapons to commoners without even a wizard among them.

“C-Can we really fight the Dark Elves?”

“Of course, without magic power it’s hard to break through a necromancer’s undead spirits, but if you target the main body well, you can still kill them. As for regular Dark Elves, if you aim and hit them properly, you can win.”

The commoners were skeptical but still accepted the guns, half-believing, half-doubting the idea that they could fight enemies even wizards couldn’t overcome.

While distributing weapons, Turan also increased his efforts in hunting Dark Elves.

His Tracking Magic could not be evaded by any Dark Elf.

It was a drawback that he couldn’t distinguish regular Dark Elves from necromancers, just as one couldn’t tell a human from a wizard at a glance.

But dozens of Dark Elf commoners or a few weak necromancers didn’t even require Turan to act personally, Bije could handle them alone. And when several powerful necromancers gathered, he personally stepped in and obliterated them all with a single Railgun strike.

At one point, Turan even encountered a Dark Elf lord more powerful than a self-proclaimed Necroking who possessed abilities on par with a top-ranking noble.

“You... why is a monster like you alive in this era-!”

The Dark Elf lord cried out in frustration, but Turan lodged a steel ball into his head and turned around.

Scattered across the ruins, which had once been a bountiful forest, were the corpses of hundreds of Dark Elves slain alongside Bije.

“I must’ve killed at least a few thousand of these bastards already.”

-It stinks...

Even after all that relentless killing, the area Turan had swept through was only a portion of the entire forest zone.

If he were to continue combing the forest in order to completely exterminate the Dark Elves, it would probably take at least a few months.

Since his goal was only to create safe passages through which humans could travel within this area, he would have to head north at an appropriate point.

As for those he hadn’t been able to meet yet, all he could do was hope and cheer for their survival.

About a day later, Turan suddenly caught the acrid smell of burning Dark Elves from ahead.

It was such a familiar scent that he wondered if he had somehow gotten turned around and returned to where he had been the day before.

“Ah.”

Turan soon realized the reason for the smell.

Meisa, wielding the Hammer of the Thunder Lord, was leading a mixed unit composed of Birdmen and knights, subjugating the Dark Elves.

*****

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