The Shepherd Alone on the Hill is a Genius Wizard-Chapter 107: A Pact of Trust (1)
In the bakery with no lights lit, only moonlight shining.
Turan explained to Meisa how he had obtained such materials and why he had investigated.
This naturally led to mentioning everything from his past to his abilities, companions he had joined with, and Solif’s existence.
Perhaps because it was about the third time explaining it.
Feeling he could explain the story more coherently than before, Turan finished by explaining various secrets he had learned while traveling and hypotheses deduced from them.
Finally after demonstrating both Zahar and Arabion bloodline abilities once each, Meisa who had been listening silently spoke up.
Surprisingly, her words were close to sharp criticism.
"There are quite a lot of logical leaps, and lack of evidence."
"That’s right."
Turan nodded and admitted readily.
Until now he had only secured several indirect pieces of evidence, not definitive physical proof about the existence of any gods or the true nature of those persecuting Meisa.
If he hadn’t directly met a librarian and accessed related information or experienced it firsthand in the labyrinth, it could have been treated as just groundless conspiracy theories.
"But I think the life you’ve experienced until now is evidence in itself."
A woman born into the most noble status in this world as a great house’s successor, yet unreasonably persecuted.
Turan’s hypothesis clearly explained how she came to live such a miserable life.
"True. So I’ll believe it. Maybe I should say I want to believe it."
Want to believe - that was probably Meisa’s true feelings.
Then she could say she wasn’t crazy, that this cursed house was what was wrong.
After catching her breath several times, she looked at Turan and asked:
"Then, what should I do from now on?"
"First we need to prepare to escape."
Unlike Baraha’s head who was quite young, Arabion’s head was already an old man who wouldn’t be strange to die within a few years.
Though she was a powerful wizard, since she wasn’t enough to reject the hand of a head who might be a divine being, she needed to escape first when there was a chance.
"Escape..."
Turan could read fear and learned helplessness in her murmuring voice.
Though Meisa was a great wizard with almost no match except great house heads, separately from that she was just an immature adult who had lived her whole life persecuted within the house’s fence.
In fact, considering she was only about twenty-two years old, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say she was still a child as a noble.
Of course, Turan thinking this was even younger.
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Then, fear appeared on her emaciated face as if recalling something.
"If I escape, won’t there be retaliation against my aunt’s side?"
As everyone knew Meisa cherished her maternal family House Berk, it was quite predictable they would be persecuted as the price of her escape.
Since this too had been considered, Turan immediately brought out his prepared answer.
"That could happen. So after escaping, I plan to spread some of the documents obtained this time among vassal houses."
Arabion’s vassal houses in and around the Dakein Plains totaled 17.
Though three or four houses were practically in collusion with the Middle-aged faction, the rest only formed relatively loose lord-vassal relationships.
In that situation, if evidence of corruption by Arabion main house executives was delivered in Meisa’s name?
"It would be difficult to persecute House Berk for a while. They would lose in justification."
If House Berk was persecuted after Meisa exposed corruption among house executives, to other vassal houses’ eyes this would inevitably appear as unreasonable violence by the lord house.
Moreover, not only the Youth faction who usually lived suppressed, but some upright Elder faction nobles would also find such a situation unpleasant.
Though the Middle-aged faction was Arabion’s core power backed by the head, if they tried to forcibly suppress all of them, the house would clearly be cut in half.
Since there was no guarantee Meisa would return even if they persecuted House Berk, the side effects were too large for what would essentially be just venting anger.
"Ah..."
"Of course the influence of corruption documents will weaken after several decades, but before then we need to find a way to face the head. Or hope he dies of old age."
The combination of Meisa, Solif, and Turan would be more than enough to hunt even decent mythical beasts.
While such beings born near great houses’ territories would naturally be hunted before long, there should still be surviving specimens in some remote areas untouched by human hands, starting from the sea.
Of course searching through the vast world everywhere would take considerable time, but with good luck it wouldn’t be impossible to build power to face several great houses within ten-plus years.
This was realistically the best method possible in the current situation.
After all, they couldn’t just wait for Meisa to become a sacrifice for House Berk.
After several minutes of silence passed, Meisa difficultly nodded.
"...Alright. Please take care of me from now on, Turan."
And so, Turan gained another companion.
==
After sorting out the conversation to some extent, they began discussing concrete escape plans.
"First, just getting out itself shouldn’t be too difficult. Since you wear all your magic devices normally, you can just insist you want to go for a walk and leave. Though we’ll need to deal with that woman first."
"You mean Leto?"
"Yes."
Leto, the Zahar noble following Arabion’s nobles.
It was obvious they would be tracked down quickly if they fled without dealing with her.
Though Turan could remove Meisa’s traces within the mansion, he couldn’t prevent tracking through other means.
"Based on searching here, she’s the only noble with Zahar bloodline among nobles existing within Arabion, so removing her should buy enough time to escape. Are you close with her?"
Though he couldn’t check often while raiding nobles these past few days, when checking Meisa’s mansion occasionally he would sense Leto visiting there.
Plus given that she even brought fairy tales personally, there might be some friendship.
To Turan’s question, Meisa shook her head in denial.
"To be honest, I did feel some closeness. But not anymore."
Meisa, while deeply isolated, had inwardly welcomed Leto who wasn’t replaced despite frequent contact and remained gentle, but deliberately treated her coldly worried that getting too close might lead to replacement.
Meanwhile she found comfort in subtly interacting like occasionally mentioning these were stories her mother used to read while looking at fairy tales.
"It’s laughable. To have inwardly cherished the woman who killed my family and tormented me..."
Meisa recited what she had endured like a crazy person rambling.
Windows breaking without any warning while resting comfortably, clothes placed in the house being shredded while looking away briefly, cherished family portraits disappearing from her bosom.
Whenever such things happened she reported to house members, mainly adults, but they just treated it as oversensitivity.