Chapter 1

Turan had awakened to the power of magic eight years ago, in the winter of the year he turned ten. While his mother was out with the sheep, he thought he might light a fire—and flames suddenly sprang up in the stove.

Before long, he discovered he could do all sorts of things simply by thinking about them. He could lift objects, set things alight, summon the wind, and even create invisible walls...

["Mom, look! The firewood’s flying!"]

That evening, Turan showed off his abilities to his mother when she returned home with the sheepdog and the flock. She showed neither wonder nor joy at her son’s powers. She merely snatched the floating firewood out of the air, her expression a mixture of resignation and despair.

["Turan, promise me something. Promise you won’t use that power carelessly from now on. Especially not in front of other people. Never."]

["Why?"]

Turan was a good child who always obeyed his mother, but he could not help protesting when she asked him to suppress such a marvelous, entertaining power. Giving him a cup of warm sheep’s milk, she told him for the first time about the world far below.

["Down below the hill, there are people called nobles."]

According to his mother, the nobles were descendants of the Freyans, the divine people who had descended into the world long ago and saved humanity. Born with powerful magic inherited from their ancestors, they reigned as humanity’s rulers and protectors.

Those among their descendants whose blood had mingled with ordinary humans over many generations were called knights. They, too, were born with magic like the nobles, but their weaker powers meant they were employed as attendants. His mother told Turan that he had inherited a knight’s power from his father, and that if he went down the mountain, wicked nobles would seize him and work him mercilessly.

["If nobles are shepherds like us, then knights are the dogs those shepherds keep. Sometimes they might treat them like family and dote on them... but if the need arises, they can just as easily sell them off or sacrifice them."]

Though the nobles had everything, they constantly fought one another to gain even more, and most of those sacrificed in the fighting were the knights who served them. Just as a shepherd sent his sheepdogs to fight a wolf rather than face it himself, while he stayed back and merely slung stones. As his mother explained this, her face held a look of desolation Turan had never seen before.

["You want to live with me for a long, long time, don’t you, Turan?"]

["Yes."]

["Then you must hide that power. Otherwise, wicked nobles will come and take you away. You’ll never see me again."]

["All right! I’ll never use it in front of anyone else!"]

Eight years had already passed since he had made that confident promise. Even after his mother fell ill and died, Turan still lived on Hisaril Hill, tending his sheep. Hiding from the nobles who might one day come looking for him, so that he would not become one of their sheepdogs.

* * *

“Idiots.”

Turan shut the cottage door with a scowl. It was early morning, before the sun had even risen, and the young men of the village had come in a mob to question him about Rabus’s death a few days earlier. Anyone could see the unmistakable signs of the leopard monster’s attack, yet they insisted Turan must have injured the old man and thrown him to the monster as bait, trying to pin that absurd accusation on him.

Their reasons were not hard to guess. An old man had left the village and died while the young men stayed behind. Before anyone could accuse them of getting him killed through their cowardice and laziness, they were clearly trying to shift some of the blame onto Turan.

Naturally, Turan had given the young men who came picking a fight a thorough beating and driven them off. The next time he went down to barter in the village, they would probably use this as an excuse to retaliate by cheating him on prices or tampering with the goods. Then he would beat some sense into a few more of the bastards and get a fair trade. It was a tiresome routine that had played out many times already, and likely would many times more.

He had barely lost himself in these thoughts when someone suddenly pounded on the door. Turan heaved a deep sigh, opened it, and growled.

“Which bastard is it this time? Do you really want to fucking die?”

He had only just taught them a lesson. Had they grown so stupid they had forgotten it already? To his surprise, however, the person at the door was not one of the village youths who had visited earlier. A man who looked to be in his mid-to-late forties, wrapped in a dust-covered cloak, spoke with an awkward expression.

“Er... pardon me, young man. I’m traveling, and I came to ask if I might impose on your hospitality for a little while. It seems I’ve caught you at a bad time.”

A traveler. Turan’s mind briefly went blank at the sight of someone he had never encountered in all his eighteen years. To think anyone had enough time on their hands to visit a backwater with absolutely nothing to see. After a moment of standing stiffly frozen, he quickly stepped aside to let the man in.

“No, not at all. Please come in. I just had some unpleasant people visiting.”

The polite way of speaking to his elders that his mother had taught him felt terribly unfamiliar on his tongue. When had he last spoken this way? Before he discovered that Rabus and the rest of the village notables were all sons of bitches, so it really had been a long time.

“Then thank you for having me.”

In truth, if he wanted to keep his identity hidden, he ought to have sent an unknown visitor packing at once. Still, Turan decided to let him in. For once, he wanted a conversation without hostility, no matter who it was with. Besides, if the man turned out to be a villain with ill intentions, Turan was confident he could deal with him.

“Have you had breakfast, sir?”

“Not yet.”

“Neither have I. Please join me.”

After seating the traveler at the table, Turan set out sheep’s milk collected yesterday, cheese, porridge made from dried grain brought from the village, a crushed lump of rock salt, and mutton jerky. Unless you were on the verge of starvation yourself, you should treat a guest generously; then the guest would not dare harm the host. This, too, was a rule of hospitality his mother had taught him.

“We have so little here that I’m afraid I haven’t much to offer.”

“Nonsense! This is a veritable feast. You have my thanks.”

Apparently, those were not empty words. The man devoured the food Turan offered with such relish that he might have gone days without eating. Even so, unlike the villagers, he showed fairly polished table manners—not speaking with food in his mouth, turning his head slightly when drinking, and so on. The traveler seemed to have formed a similar impression of Turan, for he set down his cup of sheep’s milk and offered a compliment.

“A young man who knows his table manners. Your parents must have taught you well.”

“I learned from my mother.”

Perhaps sensing something from his omission of his father, the traveler hesitated briefly before continuing.

“Does she live in the village, then? From the look of the house, I take it she doesn’t live here with you.”

He had apparently already noticed that there was only one set of bedding in the house. Turan nodded and replied evenly.

“She passed away from an illness a few years ago.”

The traveler looked dismayed for a moment, then made the sign of the cross with one hand and bowed his head. It was a gesture Turan had never seen before.

“My condolences. Having raised such a fine young man, she is surely dwelling with the gods in the palace in the heavens.”

“I hope so, too.”

When he first lost his mother, merely thinking of her had been enough to leave him in tears and without an appetite all day. Did being able to speak of her with at least an outward smile mean he had grown up, or was her presence in his heart fading with time? As his spirits rapidly sank, Turan forced a change of subject to lift them.

“What brings you all the way out here on your travels, Elder?”

“I happened to be passing through a nearby city when I came across an old man looking for a wizard. He said a leopard monster had appeared in his village and wanted someone to kill it. After hearing his story, I came to deal with it. I’m quite confident in my fighting abilities.”

“By yourself?”

He was not even a young man in his prime, but an aging fellow who looked as though his back might soon begin to stoop—and he meant to confront it without so much as a weapon? At Turan’s astonished expression, the traveler gave a sheepish smile.

“I’m a knight. I served House Arabion for sixty years. I can handle most monsters well enough.”

The instant Turan heard the word knight, his eyes widened and every muscle in his body tensed. One of the beings he had only heard of from his mother—a noble’s lackey... But his alarm soon passed. Seeing no hostility in the man’s eyes, Turan slowly relaxed.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’ve never met a wizard before... More to the point, you certainly don’t look old enough to have worked for sixty years.”

“Wizards age more slowly and live longer than ordinary people. I’m seventy-five this year. And this is only because I’m a knight. I hear powerful nobles can easily live past two or three hundred.”

Marveling at this new discovery, Turan closely studied this other member of his own kind. Outwardly, it was difficult to find any difference between him and an ordinary person. If he had to name one, it was that the man was well built and looked healthy, with good color in his face... In other words, being a wizard did not mean one could identify another wizard merely by looking at them.

That was extremely important information. Did it not mean that even if Turan stood in the middle of a crowded city, no one would know what he was as long as he avoided conspicuous magic? Simply learning that made him feel as though one layer of the chains constricting his chest had fallen away.

“Wizards really are remarkable.”

“Remarkable? Hardly! I find people like you far more remarkable. You live in a harsh place like this, where monsters appear, without relying on magic at all. I would never have dared.”

Contrary to what the man thought, this was the first time a monster dangerous enough to threaten humans had appeared in the area. Since Turan was born, at any rate. Otherwise, no matter how extraordinary his mother might have been, she could not have worked here alone as a shepherd. Indeed, a woman who had raised a child all by herself on this desolate hill, without even the power of magic, truly deserved praise.

“Come to think of it, we haven’t even introduced ourselves. My name is Keorn. Keorn of Arabion—no, I shouldn’t call myself that anymore. Keorn the Wanderer. And you?”

“I’m Turan. The only shepherd on Hisaril Hill.”

“A fine name.”

“You said earlier that you ‘served’ the house. Does that mean you no longer do?”

“I formally ended my oath of vassalage a month ago. The house offered to care for me until I died of old age if I wished... but I wanted to spend my remaining years seeing different places. I’d been bound to one house all my life, ever since they hired me at fifteen.”

“Don’t other houses try to take you?”

“Why would they? I’m neither a capable knight with great achievements to my name nor a talented youngster. Keeping an old dog like me would only mean another mouth to feed.”

Even as he disparaged himself as an old dog, unmistakable pride and ease showed on his face. Turan had only ever heard that nobles were arrogant, brutal predators, and knights the unfeeling hounds they commanded. Yet Keorn seemed more easygoing and cheerful than any adult he had ever met.

When their pleasant meal was over, Keorn rose and placed a small silver coin on the table. Its upper face bore the likeness of a handsome man Turan did not recognize.

“Arabion silver. The purest silver coin there is. Trade it in the village, and it should more than cover the meal. Though prices around here do seem rather high.”

Keorn grumbled that this damned village would even try to fleece someone who had come to help them. Given what Turan knew of the villagers’ character, that was hardly surprising. He took the silver coin and offered a polite farewell.

“I hope your hunt goes smoothly.”

“Don’t act as though you’ll never see me again. I may stop by a few more times to beg a meal along the way!”