Shepherd Wizard-Chapter 226

Translator: Pai_

The castle in the Grassy Plains appeared to have been built more for artistic purposes than for defense against external invasion, constructed like one large building without an outer wall.

As Kim Woong had mentioned earlier, it had originally been a hideout surrounded by low hills, but now the surrounding terrain had sunken as if scooped out with a spoon, leaving the castle towering alone atop a hill.

Just a glance at the exposed soil revealed that the changes were not from long ago.

Perhaps feeling the same, Meisa, who was right next to him, spoke.

“Could it be that the puppets warped the terrain to make it easier to find them?”

“That’s probably it. It doesn’t seem like a situation where they could guide them one by one.”

According to a brief interrogation, the victims of the symbiotic hosts, including Keorn, did not know exactly where they needed to go.

They were simply moving along a vague pull, seeking safety.

It was clear that the entity didn't want the puppets who came looking for it to wander aimlessly and starve to death from being unable to find the exact location.

“So, how do we get in?”

As Solif pointed out, there was no open entrance to this castle.

Not to mention the walls, even the glass windows scattered throughout were sacred relics and didn’t get scratched by ordinary attacks.

While they were looking around, Solif fired a high-temperature beam, but astonishingly, it was reflected back with full force.

“Keck.”

Had it been someone other than Solif wearing the silver armor of the sun, they would have melted and died on the spot.

The beam he had fired with full power was strong enough to easily cut through a small hill.

“Ah, that was hot… these gods just had to make all kinds of annoying buildings.”

As Solif splashed water on his armor, now hot to the touch, and stuck out his tongue, Turan turned his gaze to Kim Woong.

“How do we get in?”

“Of course I don’t know. I only heard rumors that a building like this existed here. I know even less than you do.”

The gods of the old empire era may have moved as one group, but within that group, they were divided into factions based on guild affiliations or personal connections.

It was only through passing words that he’d heard Monarch was going to establish a lab in a place like this, so it was reasonable for him to argue that there was no way he’d know such secret details.

Turan clicked his tongue in disappointment but soon raised his hand to stop everyone’s movement upon sensing a presence behind them.

“Wait.”

Before long, those who had made their presence known cautiously approached the castle.

They seemed briefly startled by the magical beasts lined up beside Turan’s group, but then the old man at the front smiled and said,

“Are you, by any chance, someone who came here after having the same dream?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“I thought so! But why are you not going in…”

“We’re at the entrance, but the door won’t open.”

“Is that so? That’s stran-”

At that moment, the expression of the man who was answering twisted for an instant, his gaze darted around, and his eyes changed.

Turan recognized that Monarch’s consciousness had possessed the man.

“Damn it, you again? This is getting tiresome. How did you find this place… Ah, I see. You came looking for these.”

“That’s how it turned out.”

“I should’ve never set that auto-recall function.”

As he spoke, he glanced back slightly, and there was Kim Woong, already hidden in concealment and crouched in the middle of the group.

Clearly not wanting it known that he was here.

With a slightly defeated tone, the Monarch occupying the old man’s body spoke.

“Just asking, but you’re not thinking of giving me Meisa’s or your son’s body at this point, are you?”

“That goes without saying.”

“Well then- urk!”

Before he could finish his sentence, Turan immediately grabbed the neck of the puppet possessed by Monarch.

No matter what the other side had to say, their business came first.

“Elder!”

The group behind them became enraged, seeing their leader suddenly say something incomprehensible and get attacked, but they didn’t dare resist.

Just seeing him accompanied by more than a dozen of those rare guilded magical beasts was enough to guess at the man's wealth and power.

Not to mention, judging by his movements just now, that gray-haired young man was undoubtedly a wizard.

“Thanks, Monarch. I’ll make good use of you.”

Calling the forbidden name for the first time in a while, Turan brought the Monarch-possessed puppet, still held by the neck, to the front of the castle gate.

Then, with a thud, the gate recognized the puppet and automatically opened.

As expected, the puppets were set up to be able to enter on their own.

“There was no need for you to hand-deliver the key like this.”

“Keugh... Sorry, but you got the wrong address. Do you really think I would’ve exposed the location in such an obvious way? While you're here, I wonder what will happen to your son.”

At Monarch’s mockery, choking as his neck was still gripped, Meisa's face turned vicious.

However, Turan, without so much as a change in expression, sneered.

“If you’d really done something, you wouldn’t be saying that.”

He had already combed through and inspected the Parsha main house in Kalamaf and the Temple of the Sun multiple times to check for any Monarch puppets.

Even the servants who had been receiving orders while being paid by outsiders had been identified using the Eye of Truth, more than a dozen of them, and exiled.

Because of that, he was confident Monarch wouldn’t even know Luska’s location, let alone attempt anything.

Realizing his threat hadn’t worked, Monarch’s eyes widened in anger, and his body began to grotesquely mutate.

The ability of a Biologist, to modify the body into a combat form.

However, before he could attempt anything with his transformed body, a lightning bolt flashed from Meisa’s hand nearby and burned the flesh to ashes.

Turan, who was standing right next to them, was also electrocuted, but thanks to his far more durable body and the protection of the defensive magic artifact, he only felt a mild tingle.

“...Just in case.”

“Yeah.”

Indeed, in a situation like this, it was awkward to keep him alive and imprisoned somewhere.

Especially since they were already deep in enemy territory.

Turan looked down at the ashes briefly, then dusted off his hands and turned to the companions of the puppet who had just died.

Fortunately, none of them were puppets.

“You all should go back now.”

“B-but...”

“That old man you were following came here under the influence of the enemy of this castle and died. If you saw the moment he turned into a monster, you should understand.”

Such a flimsy explanation wouldn’t be enough to fully convince them, but it didn’t matter.

They were just commoners; there was nothing they could do anyway.

After sending the tearful group on their way, Turan turned his gaze to Kim Woong as he saw the gate begin to close again.

“Then have the magical beasts stand guard outside. We’ll check when we return.”

Before entering, they had decided to leave most of the magical beasts they had ridden up to this point at the entrance.

The inside of the castle was not spacious enough to allow large animals to move around freely, even if people could.

Unfortunately, the magical beasts they had brought were all large ones, capable of carrying people over long distances.

Kim Woong, staring blankly at the magical beasts lined up near the entrance, turned his gaze to Turan and asked,

“Aren’t you worried I might run away?”

“Not unless you plan to live the rest of your life hiding behind barriers."

With a high-level barrier cast using skills, it might be possible to evade even Turan’s tracking magic. But considering it wasn’t something that could be maintained frequently or in multiple locations, a closed-off life would be inevitable.

Especially in a situation where he had lost all his comrades and was alone, it wouldn’t be easy to switch bodies either.

Considering the mercy Turan had shown so far, it would be better to obediently entrust his life to him than to live like that in hiding for the rest of his life.

Understanding this, Kim Woong grimaced but nodded.

“I’m begging you, please kill him and come back. Let me enjoy my final years in peace.”

With that, the gate closed with a thud, and Turan lightly stretched and turned around.

The others were already exploring the inside of the castle.

“These paintings... they look like real things.”

“Did they apply colored paint after fire-etching them?”

The first thing that stood out was the series of colorful paintings attached to various parts of the black-and-white furniture and walls.

Most of the artworks depicted people, flowers, and landscapes, and their level of detail was astonishing.

Just like the "photographs" seen on Earth.

‘The sensory function of the Mimic Sacred Relic is going to be almost useless.’

Because the entire space was like a sea brimming with magic power, his sensory perception had completely lost its ability to distinguish anything.

Turan, feeling as though even his real senses were being distorted, deactivated the sensory function of the sacred relic altogether.

“So, what now?”

“Let’s try moving forward for now.”

There were three large passageways at the castle entrance, and Turan decided to lead the group through the innermost one.

The hallway was about fifteen meters wide and five meters high.

The floor was made of blue marble and shone as if freshly polished, as if the passing of thousands of years had meant nothing.

“If I ever settle down, I’d want to live in a house like this.”

“Isn’t it a bit too dark?”

“That’s just because you’ve always lived in Kalamaf. Houses aren’t all supposed to be brightly lit.”

Turan didn’t stop the chatter of his subordinates echoing behind him.

He knew too well that maintaining excessive tension before a real battle could just wear them out.

Letting them lighten up in their own way by chatting like this wasn’t a bad thing.

‘Wait.’

Suddenly, he saw the portrait of a woman holding a flower up ahead begin to change.

The eyes, which had originally faced forward, spun around toward them, and the previously expressionless face twisted in anger.

Whatever it was, it was clearly not friendly.

“Everyone, battle positions!”

At Turan’s shout, the somewhat relaxed nobles quickly took formation.

Their coordination was impressive, enough to make the previous lapse in tension seem laughable.

Considering that nobles as a group weren’t usually used to cooperative combat, it was surprising.

This was the result of having the specially trained nobles of Parsha at the core, successfully managing a few nobles from Varaha and Aravion.

[□■□■-□■□■□■-!]

Everyone’s faces turned grim at the horrible sound echoing from the distant corridor.

Soon after, the familiar flesh monsters, already encountered several times, came rushing in.

Seeing them, Solif grumbled.

“Those things again? This is getting old.”

“It’s only your second time seeing them. This is my fourth.”

The underground labyrinth, then in front of the library, followed by the battle with Badal, and now this.

It was clear these were Monarch’s optimized combat units created through “flesh molding”.

However, the corridor here neutralized the advantages of their agile and powerful physical abilities.

As two steam machine guns spewed bullets and Solif added white flames, the charging monsters were either crushed or burned.

Seeing the creatures retreat in screams, the nobles who had initially been tense let out a sigh of relief.

“They looked like something out of a nightmare, but they weren’t a big deal after all.”

“Don’t worry too much. Overconfidence is bad, but so is being overly afraid.”

The reason for the monsters’ relatively weak strength was easy enough to figure out.

The only usable body resources Monarch would have had here were the nomads and the few wizards who ruled over them.

Unlike the domains ruled by the great noble houses overflowing with powerful wizards, the grassy plains had fewer than ten high-ranking nobles.

‘Still, this being the extent of it feels a bit off.’

If the monsters had simply kept charging until they were all dead, he could’ve chalked it up to a final act of desperation. But the way they were pulling back was clearly closer to a calculated strategy.

As if they were trying to gauge this side’s capabilities.

Turan gave a brief warning to his subordinates not to relax too much and then gave the order to advance again.

They moved forward for a few more minutes.

Only then did they realize something was wrong.

“This corridor…”

“Isn’t it way too long?”

From the outside, the castle looked to be only a few hundred meters in width and length.

Even though they weren’t walking particularly fast, the corridor wasn’t something that should have taken several minutes to traverse.

At this rate, they should’ve already passed through the entire structure.

It seemed clear now that the interior of this castle didn’t operate the same way as it appeared from the outside.

After expending their mental energy on the endlessly continuing corridor and the portraits that occasionally shifted their gaze and expressions.

"Is this...?"

“Smoke? No, more like fog.”

Before they realized it, their bodies were enveloped in pure white mist.

They had entered the sphere of influence of the Misty Zone, located on the eastern edge of the world.

Presumably, the castle itself was in a space where reality was distorted, and part of it either touched the boundary of the Misty Zone or shared its properties.

Since the place was originally created to research that region, it wasn’t all that surprising for it to have such functions.

The problem was that in a space like this, firearms became far less effective.

They could barely see a dozen meters ahead.

“Are we going to keep moving forward?”

“We have to.”

To Meisa’s question, Turan nodded and took the lead himself.

The very presence of such a defensive measure suggested just how important this place was to Monarch.

If it had been a place he didn’t care about being breached, it would’ve been left unguarded.

“Everyone, keep your guns ready, but also prepare for close combat.”

“Understood.”

As he gave the order, Turan recalled the properties of the Misty Zone he’d learned before.

In the real Misty Zone, the fog was so thick that you couldn’t see your own hand in front of your face, and it distorted one’s sense of direction.

But here, although the mist was blurry, they could still make out the walls and floor on either side.

Was the distortion effect weaker because they were inside the castle?

‘If so, the effect that erases markers might not work properly either.’

Of course, considering the entire building was a sacred relic, using conventional markers wouldn’t be easy, but there were still a few usable items.

Turan took one of the nearby portraits that had been glaring at them, broke it into pieces, made an arrow out of it, and laid it on the ground.

Even just knowing which direction they had been heading would be useful.

After giving that instruction, they marched forward again for a few more minutes.

Just like before, the sound of a beast howling echoed from far ahead.

“Enemy.”

“Prepare to fire!”

Though the presence wasn’t very clear, perhaps because the fog was swallowing the sound, it was obvious something was approaching.

Frustrated at not being able to clearly identify the enemy, Turan frowned slightly.

‘It’s been a while... since I’ve felt this way.’

Normally, even the concealment of House Zahar could be seen through with the senses of the Mimic Sacred Relic, but he hadn’t anticipated that in a space oversaturated with magic power, it would cease functioning.

Not that there was any real countermeasure, even if he knew.

A few seconds passed as he stared ahead.

The moment something flickered beyond the mist, the shooting began.

“Fire!”

At Solif’s command, the steam machine guns began unleashing bullets again.

Steam spread through the mist, and they could see the charging monsters getting blasted away, spewing blood.

Thinking this was going to be no different from earlier, that’s when it happened, one massive shadow among the incoming monsters suddenly surged forward.

“What is that-”

Thud! With a roar, an ice axe flew in. Its blade alone was larger than a human.

If Meisa hadn’t struck it away with her hammer, one of the nobles would have been killed on the spot, realizing that, the man fell backward in shock.

"Eugh..."

Turan felt like he’d seen the face of the man charging in after throwing the axe somewhere before.

A middle-aged man with sky-blue hair, wielding two axes.

That was definitely Cadrum, or rather, the appearance of the character from the game in the memories of Junseo, whose soul he had devoured.

His skin had turned a bluish hue, with rot spreading in some places, clearly proving he was already dead, but his movements and facial expressions were no different from those of the living.

Wrath of Frost, Ymir, let out a monstrous shriek as he rushed toward them.

[You’re all fucking dead, you piece-of-shit NPC bastards!]

*****

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