Chapter 108

A few hours had passed since the discovery of Onil's death.

The subjugation team members immediately transported the tamer on an orca magical beast to the main estate in Avacha to report the captain's death.

Naturally, the House Carmine was thrown into turmoil.

Although he was poorly regarded due to his vile personality, he was still a skilled individual who ranked among the top nobles in the main estate in terms of magic power.

And yet, he had died while hunting a mere magical beast?

A task force was immediately assembled to investigate the truth, and among them was Jemel Carmine, Onil's father, the family head’s younger brother, and one of the absolute powerhouses of the house.

"This way, Lord Jemel."

"Hmm."

The subjugation team members shuddered as they watched the man approach with an exceedingly solemn expression.

Before them lay the headless corpse of the investigation team leader’s son.

If Jemel were to demand accountability for his son's death and summarily execute the subjugation team members on the spot, he would likely only receive a few reprimands from the family head before the matter was settled.

Compared to knights or mid-ranking nobles, such high-ranking nobles were extraordinarily rare.

Whether Jemel understood the subjugation team's anxiety or not, he remained expressionless as he gazed down at his son's corpse.

After a brief silence, he asked in a completely dry tone,

"Why was his head severed?"

"It… it appears that it was bitten off during the battle, as it was found inside the magical beast’s mouth."

"The teeth of an octopus are sharper than I thought. I didn’t know that. Is it because it’s a magical beast?"

Jemel caressed the severed edge of Onil's neck, appearing less like a grieving father and more like someone numbed by overwhelming sorrow.

"Explain the course of events in detail."

"Yes. We departed smoothly from the operation area and headed north…"

The lieutenant slightly distorted the truth in their report.

In reality, Onil had been drinking heavily and causing trouble, but the lieutenant framed it as if he had been ordering the restoration of the affected area and actively devising operational plans.

At this, Jemel clicked his tongue and said,

"Enough. He was my son. Do you think I wouldn’t know him? There’s no need to flatter him. He was probably just getting drunk as usual."

"I-I apologize."

The lieutenant was astonished at Jemel’s brutally objective view of his own son but also admitted it was true.

Having been seen through once, the lieutenant then reported the subsequent events honestly.

Drunkenly leaving the command to his subordinates and causing a ruckus, pretending to fight by staying in the rear and whipping the knights instead, then charging in alone at the end, declaring he would finish things himself…

It felt almost too much to confess everything, but rather than being surprised, Jemel and the high-ranking nobles of House Carmine merely looked as if they had expected nothing less.

"He charged in alone?"

"Yes. He threatened to kill anyone who followed him, so no one could assist him. I apologize."

"Hmm. He was braver than I expected. I didn’t anticipate that. Did I misjudge him…?"

The murmured remark left the lieutenant wide-eyed in shock.

At first, they had assumed Jemel was simply acting cold due to excessive grief, but his reaction seemed even less than what one would have for a dead pet.

That shock barely lasted a moment before Jemel's gaze returned to them, and the lieutenant quickly lowered their eyes.

"By the way, Onil’s body seems to be devoid of magic power."

"It was likely absorbed while his head was being eaten. However, the magical beast was too severely wounded to fully digest the magic power…"

"So it evaporated as excess magic when it died. Everyone, project your magic power."

Jemel ordered the noble members of the subjugation team to project their magic. After confirming that none of them had experienced a significant increase in power, he nodded.

This absolved them of the suspicion that they had stolen Onil's remaining magic power.

Afterward, while Jemel quietly conversed with the investigation team members, the subjugation team members bit their lips and nails nervously, feeling like condemned prisoners awaiting execution.

A few moments later, Jemel issued his judgment.

"I believe none of the noble participants in this operation have reached their growth limit, correct?"

"Y-yes, that is correct."

"The magical beast’s magic power will be distributed among the four of you. Absorb it immediately."

At Jemel’s ruling, not only the subjugation team members but even the investigation team showed expressions of surprise.

One of the noble members of the subjugation team muttered in disbelief.

“What about… punishment?”

“There will be no punishment. You all did your best, and realistically, you wouldn’t have been able to stop Onil. If anything, I should be the one apologizing to the family head. I raised my child poorly and endangered everyone.”

"Lord Jemel...!"

Some of the subjugation team members were so moved by his calm admission of his own shortcomings, even in the face of his son’s death, that they shed a few tears.

How could such a noble father have produced such a delinquent son?

As the noble members of the subjugation team absorbed the magic power, Jemel distanced himself slightly and observed Onil’s corpse once more.

The others respectfully kept their distance, allowing the father his final moments with his son.

"Hmm... I hope it's not a fake? Even though he's my son, I can't really tell looking at him like this. Maybe it would have been easier to recognize him if he weren’t so bloated.”

Jemel murmured as he ran his hand over Onil’s swollen face and body.

The idea that parents naturally knew their children’s physical features was something that applied only to commoners. Having left his son in the care of servants from an early age, Jemel had no reason to be familiar with such details.

He hadn’t raised his son with enough attention or care to know.

“I wanted to raise him properly at least once since he seemed to have some exceptional potential… Tch, I didn’t expect him to die like this.”

Not only had Onil been a fairly competent individual on his own, but he had also served as a backup body in case one of their kind perished in an accident. Losing him was somewhat regrettable.

But that was all.

Out of the hundreds of children he had so far and the thousands more he would have in the future, one had simply died.

That was how Jemel saw it as he erased Onil’s face, name, and the few memories he had of him from his mind.

One of the secrets to living a long life was knowing how to discard unnecessary information in a timely manner.

*

After tossing Onil’s water-bloated corpse to the subjugation team members, Turan remained concealed and observed the final proceedings with meticulous attention.

If Jemel or any member of the investigation team scrutinized Onil’s death and uncovered any suspicions, this body-switching strategy would not be usable again.

Fortunately, the nobles of House Carmine had more or less accepted the fabricated scenario Turan had created.

Had they examined the corpse in detail, they might have found one or two inconsistencies, but most people, when faced with an obvious conclusion, did not go out of their way to seek a more complex and difficult truth.

After confirming that Onil’s body had been placed inside the coffin, Turan, now free, disguised himself as an ordinary fisherman and purchased a boat from a nearby island.

“Well then, where should I start looking…?”

Instead of returning directly to the southern reclaimed land, Turan set out for the North Sea in search of the merfolk.

Specifically, he was looking for the merfolk royal faction to which Armania belonged, the ones who had fought alongside him against the undead Great Sea Serpent.

Upon witnessing the octopus magical beast’s attack, Turan concluded that this was unlikely to be a natural occurrence.

The way the octopus moved toward the city did not seem driven by rage, hunger, or curiosity. Rather, it behaved as though it were carrying out an order.

When Turan relayed this through the mirror, Solif asked with a worried expression,

[You’re going to meet the merfolk alone? If they use the power of the Great Sea Serpents, you’ll be in trouble by yourself.]

“I’m not going to fight. I just need to confirm whether someone is actually driving the magical beasts toward the coast.”

Once he understood the truth, if the situation called for action, he would return with Meisa and Solif and crush the problem together.

After all, they weren’t the only ones who could use the power of alliances.

With his report finished, Turan sailed smoothly across the North Sea, alone on his newly acquired boat.

‘Traveling alone on a boat really is lonely.’

In the past, when he was with Solif and Meisa, although it was a bit boring, they could pass the time talking and laughing with each other.

He had also enjoyed watching Bije’s adorable antics.

Fortunately, he was not entirely without something to do. Inside his large-capacity pouch were several books he had received from Ashiz, allowing him to pass the time by reading.

Turan, using the power of the Rapids Bloodline to steer his boat through the North Sea while reading a book, looked like a scene from a painting.

“Ah, found them.”

After three days of exploration, he finally came across a group of merfolk attacking a ship.

The people on board, dressed as pirates, had lost their will to fight and were jumping into the sea, only to be captured and eaten alive by the merfolk.

Even if they were criminals, watching such a gruesome scene of cannibalism was unpleasant, so Turan decided to intervene immediately.

With a single gesture, seawater surged upward, transforming into dozens of ice spikes that shot toward the merfolk.

“Kyaah-!”

The precisely aimed spikes instantly tore through the arms and legs of the merfolk, leaving them writhing and screaming in agony as they collapsed into the sea.

The pirates, their bodies covered in bite wounds, desperately reached out to Turan, but he ignored them.

He had left the healing magic artifact with Meisa, and even if he had it, he had no intention of saving pirates, who were little better than wolves.

Dragging one of the merfolk toward him using Telekinesis Magic, Turan growled at the creature.

“Bring me your royal family, anyone will do. If you don’t, I’ll kill you.”

However, the only response he received was a feral screech and frantic struggling.

Even when he applied the torture techniques he had used on Reto, it was ineffective.

The merfolk merely drooled at the scent of human flesh, clacking their teeth together hungrily, incapable of meaningful conversation.

“Tch.”

Clicking his tongue, Turan killed all the merfolk and searched the ship.

As expected, it was an old, heavily damaged pirate ship, far more worn-out than the ones he had sold before, so he simply left it.

There was no practical way to sell it this time anyway.

He continued traveling across the North Sea, encountering merfolk several more times, but each encounter ended the same way.

It was only on his seventh encounter that he finally met a merfolk capable of conversation.

“Y-you… are…?”

Despite drooling profusely, this merfolk was able to speak.

It had a stronger presence of power compared to the others, and its physique was notably better, suggesting it belonged to the noble class.

“Hey, can you understand me?”

“Y-yes… No, you… look so delicious… Why…?”

“A merfolk noble, huh?”

“Yes…”

Perhaps its noble status allowed it to suppress its instincts enough to hold a conversation.

Turan seized the merfolk and pressed for answers.

“Where do I go to meet your royal family?”

“O-our royal family… fled… beyond the mirror…”

“Beyond the mirror? Are you talking about the mirror leading to the South Sea?”

At Turan’s question, the merfolk noble gave him a look of shock, as if wondering how a human could know that.

“Humans know more than you think. So, did all the merfolk royals flee? Is there no one left in the North Sea?”

The merfolk noble clamped its mouth shut, reluctant to answer. However, the sensation of ice spikes creatively digging into its claws made it scream in pain and spill the truth.

It seemed that as their instincts weakened and rationality strengthened, their resistance to pain also diminished.

“T-the high priest's clan… has returned… The royal family didn’t want to die at their hands, so they fled…”

Its explanation was long-winded, perhaps due to the internal conflict between its pain and hunger, but after pressing the creature a few more times, Turan grasped the situation.

According to the merfolk noble, when Armania’s faction of the merfolk royal family gained the power of the Great Sea Serpent, the other merfolk feared they would be purged and fled to the South Sea.

The weaklings among the nobles and the commoner merfolk were left behind.

“What’s the reason the magical beasts are attacking the coast?”

“Magical… beasts…? Probably… the priests… controlling them…”

At the mention that the bloodline of the Great Sea Serpent had the ability to control magical beasts, Turan’s expression hardened.

The likelihood that his suspicions were correct had grown even stronger.

After asking a few more questions, Turan ended the noble’s life.

“P-please… spare me…”

“If you wanted to live, you shouldn’t have tried to eat humans.”

A non-human that harmed people was nothing more than a wolf preying on sheep.

No matter how benevolent they might have been among their own kind, that was irrelevant.

*

Unfortunately, even after interrogating the merfolk noble, Turan was unable to determine the whereabouts of Armania’s kin.

That merfolk noble had belonged to a different faction under the rule of another royal lineage.

According to the interrogation results, the merfolk of that faction were currently engaged in fierce power struggles deep beneath the sea.

Those who had surfaced were merely commoners or fallen nobles.

At that point, Turan decided to halt his search for the merfolk and return.

He had already accomplished his goal, confirming that the merfolk, particularly Armania’s faction, were likely influencing the magical beast attacks on the coast.

The next time he came, he probably wouldn’t be alone.

Rather than summoning Bije, Turan chose to steer the boat himself toward the southwest.

Unlike him, Bije lacked tracking abilities, so he would have to explain the location and wait for her to find her way, which would likely lead to her getting lost in the vast North Sea.

Instead, it was more practical for him to reach the continent on his own first, then summon Bije from a convenient location.

‘Might as well stop by Kalamaf while I’m at it.’

From his current position, heading southwest would likely lead him to the Gray Zone.

If he continued further south, he would reach the Enril Desert.

After sailing steadily for about five days, Turan finally landed on a coastal area of the continent.

Having spent a considerable time at sea, he felt a strange sense of swaying, much like when he had disembarked from the Blue Marlin before.

“Excuse me, is this the Gray Zone? I got caught in a storm don't really know where this is..."

"That's right. You're out of luck, aren't you? I heard the winds haven't been blowing much these days."

After confirming his location at a nearby fishing village, Turan changed into the attire of an ordinary traveler and began moving inland.

Kalamaf was the westernmost city in the Gray Zone.

By following the main roads in the right direction, he would naturally arrive there.

[I’ll be there soon!]

“Alright. Be careful and wait for me if you get there first.”

Of course, there was little chance that a top-ranked magical beast like Bije would be in any danger.

Still, Turan smiled when he saw Bije holding the stone tablet through the mirror.

With that, he moved swiftly through the uninhabited areas, traveling for about three days.

Upon arriving in Kalamaf, Turan gazed at the city he had once saved, his expression filled with nostalgia.

“Looks like they’re doing well.”

From the newly repaired city walls that had once been half-destroyed to the attire of the people passing by, the city seemed little changed from when he had last left.

That alone was enough to tell him that the lord he had contracted with was managing the city reasonably well.

Before meeting Bije, Turan decided to take a quick look inside.

However, as he passed through the city gates, he noticed something unexpected.

‘Wait, where’s my statue?’

Though he was a bit embarrassed by them, a small part of him had felt a bit proud.

Yet now, all the statues of him that had once been placed beside each city gate had been removed.

Had the ruling family decided to erase them because they interfered with their authority?

It was somewhat displeasing, but not entirely unreasonable.

Clicking his tongue, Turan made his way toward the city hall to check if they were still properly hunting magical beasts as per the contract.

However…

“Ha.”

A large notice posted in front of city hall caught his eye.

The message roughly stated that a new tax had been imposed for various reasons, and at the bottom of the notice, he saw something that made him burst into laughter.

[This is declared in the name of Turan, the lord of Kalamaf.]

Of course, his laughter was not one of joy.