Chapter 31

The sky after the storm was so brilliantly clear that it seemed to mock the sailors struggling to survive on the sea. Beneath the blazing sunlight, the crew cleaned the deck, which the night had left in shambles.

“Ugh, my back.”

“Shouldn’t you be grateful that back of yours isn’t broken?”

“True enough. Heh heh. I really thought I was going to die.”

Their faces were bright as they traded jokes. Their bodies might be exhausted, but the experience of the past several hours had instilled a peculiar sense of security in them.

Perched atop a mast, Turan gazed down at them with a weary face.

‘It’s been ages since I was this exhausted. Seriously...’

Lighting a fire belowdecks to warm the air was hardly difficult. The trouble was having to maintain it for hours on end.

Later, the waves had grown so enormous that he had even needed to manipulate the incoming swells himself to keep the ship from capsizing. In fact, that was where most of his strength had gone. Perhaps the head of a great house could manage it, but with his current mana, confronting the immense power of nature head-on was impossible.

Yet looking down at the people hard at work below made all that strenuous effort worthwhile. In the end, no one had died, and the ship had not sunk.

‘Come to think of it, this thing helped quite a bit too.’

Turan took the Holy Relic from his pocket. It was the reason he had been able to rescue people he could barely see through the blinding storm: he had used the senses it granted to guide his magic.

One of the standard ways to restrain a wizard was to cover their eyes, preventing precise use of magic. In effect, he had eliminated one such weakness. So long as the target was an ordinary living creature, he could now cast magic directly on it even through a wall.

While he was marveling at this new use for his treasure, he noticed things floating in the distance. They were too small and numerous to be islands or reefs...

Before long, he realized they were bodies and debris from a ship.

“Looks like those fellows didn’t weather the storm.”

“Poor souls.”

As they passed the remains of some nearby vessel, the formerly lively sailors fell silent, devoting themselves to their work with solemn faces. Every one of them knew that without Turan, they would have shared that fate.

Once the work was done, the Marlin resumed its southeastward voyage. For several hours it rode the wind, cutting through the water.

At last, a dark shape began to rise ahead. The Enril Desert, the center of the world, welcomed them.

* * *

The storm had blown them somewhat off course, so it took another three hours for the Marlin to reach Komad. After registering their arrival with a harbor official, the sailors began unloading supplies and carrying them into a warehouse.

Turan sat quietly at one side of the harbor, passing the time watching the other senior crew members supervise. Only as the sun was setting did Pires come to find him, carrying a sack of gold coins.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Master Turan. Here are your wages, as promised.”

Turan frowned at the weight of the sack. Having handled a fair amount of money by now, he could roughly estimate a sum by its weight, and what Pires had given him was far heavier than the amount in their original agreement. At least three times as heavy.

“This is far too much. Wasn’t it supposed to be sixty Karmine gold coins?”

“The gods themselves would never forgive us if we paid you only what we promised.”

Pires explained that everyone, from the captain down to the sailors, had agreed to pool their shares of the pirate ship’s sale, and held out the sack. Turan shook his head and pointed at the chest he had been using as a seat.

“As you know, I already have more money than I can manage.”

The chest had originally stood in his cabin. There was no way to fit another eight hundred gold coins from selling the pirate ship into his bag, so he had brought it along as a makeshift money container.

Captain Pires smiled at his answer.

“Then there’s nothing for it. If you won’t take it, we’ll just have to throw it into the sea.”

Behind him, the Marlin’s sailors were watching Turan with gentle expressions quite at odds with their rough faces, as though urging him to accept the money already.

After a prolonged staring contest, Turan finally let out a helpless laugh, accepted the sack, and stuffed it into the chest.

“If we meet again, I’ll treat you to a good meal. All of you.”

“Nothing would honor us more.”

Turan stood and slipped the two straps attached to the chest over his shoulders, hoisting it onto his back. Until he found a use for the money, he would have to travel like this.

As he started toward the city, the sailors called their farewells behind him.

“We’ll miss you, Sir Knight!”

“Thank you!”

“We’ll never forget you!”

For some reason, hearing the voices of the sheep he had saved made the chest on his back feel heavy. Not merely because it held more money, but because he could feel something else contained within it.

With a smile tugging at his lips, Turan headed into Komad.

* * *

Komad, the largest city in the northern Enril Desert, had a population of a hundred and fifty thousand. The local people dressed distinctly from the visiting sailors, mostly wearing hats with long drapes of cloth and garments that covered them in one piece from top to bottom. At first Turan mistook these for skirts, but a closer look revealed trousers underneath. They seemed to be outer garments, like cloaks.

As he looked around, he sensed a tiny flame approaching from the side. Without even looking, he reached out and seized the person’s wrist.

“Aaagh!”

A dagger two fingers long dropped from the young man’s hand. Apparently, he had meant to cut the straps of the chest. Knowing he had broken the man’s wrist, Turan resumed walking through the streets rather than bothering with him further.

Fortunately, even in a throng of people, the Holy Relic’s ability did not tire him excessively. As he wandered the city, he caught sight of someone other than an ordinary person for the first time.

‘That’s...’

Unlike ordinary people, whose flames were concentrated in the heart or one or two other places, this man seemed to burn all over. His conspicuously elaborate clothing and the sword at his waist suggested he was a knight of the house that ruled this city.

As Turan had expected, the Holy Relic’s power could clearly distinguish wizards from ordinary people too.

“Excuse me. Are you a knight of House Dirmin?”

As he spoke, Turan immediately projected his power. Pressed down by mana worthy of the head of a respectable rural house, or an established member of a great house, the knight cried out in alarm.

“Yes, Master. Command me!”

Master? Apparently, nobles were addressed rather strangely in this region.

“I am Turan, from Abacha. I would like to meet the ruler here and pay my respects. Would that be possible?”

Unlike the knights of some rural house, those in cities ruled by great houses and their vassals tended to be rather proud. Nobles from weaker, less distinguished houses quite often visited such cities during their pilgrimages and demanded hospitality. After all, striking up a relationship with a noble from a great house and producing a powerful child could only benefit them.

Had Turan’s mana still been as relatively weak as when he visited House Valtas, he would merely have received the treatment due a guest from far away. But now he was several times stronger, and House Dirmin could not afford to slight him.

Still carrying his chest, Turan was escorted straight to the palace in the city center. After being bathed and provided with fresh clothing without having to lift a finger, he was granted an audience with the Dirmin House Head.

“Welcome. I am Kal Dirmin.”

Karl, the Dirmin House Head, looked about thirty. His actual age was probably somewhere between a hundred and a hundred and fifty.

The flames burning throughout his body were far more intense than the knight’s, almost dazzling. Having compared his actual mana as well, Turan could now use him as a benchmark to tell whether others were stronger or weaker than himself.

“Hmm.”

Karl gazed at Turan’s face, then briefly frowned and tilted his head. It was a tiny movement, but Turan’s keen senses did not miss it.

“And what is our guest’s name and house?”

“Turan Brahms.”

“Brahms...?”

“Merely the old name of a fallen guardian bloodline.”

The surname he gave really had belonged to an old guardian bloodline near Karmine territory. He had come across it while using the library.

For a noble, impersonating another house was said to be among the gravest taboos. But here in Zahar territory, notorious for its intrigues, vaguely dodging the question as he had when visiting other houses was far too dangerous. He could not rely on being someone’s benefactor to smooth things over, as he had with House Berg.

Fortunately, after glancing at Turan’s well-trained physique and the dagger at his waist, Karl nodded without probing further.

“I see. Now then... you wish to buy one of our house’s monsters?”

“Yes. I have a considerable amount of money.”

More precisely, he wanted to find some way to spend all this damned money as soon as possible, but he kept that part to himself. There was no need to expose a weakness during negotiations.

“So it would seem.”

Karl spoke as he read Captain Samudel’s letter of introduction, which Turan had handed him. It stated that Turan had earned eight hundred Zahar gold coins by selling Samudel a pirate ship on Miguel Island. In other words, it vouched for the money’s legitimate origins.

“We tame quite a variety of monsters. Creatures you can ride, creatures that fly or swim, even ones that can use their hands... Tell us what you want. For the right price, there is nothing we won’t sell.”

Karl added that the money one person could carry would scarcely cover the truly expensive specimens. It felt a little odd: he seemed more a merchant than the head of a wizard house.

“Could I see them for myself?”

“Certainly. I am rather busy, so I’ll have my daughter show you around.”

As he rose, Turan asked a seemingly casual question.

“Have you perhaps met someone who looks like me?”

“Hmm?”

“I had the impression you recognized me a moment ago.”

Despite his calm appearance, every one of Turan’s senses was focused on the other man. He had never expected the head of a vassal house, rather than someone from Zahar’s main house, to show signs of recognizing his face straightaway.

Contrary to his expectations, however, Karl replied with a smile.

“No, it’s nothing. Truly. I simply thought you looked a little like someone I know.”

Turan considered pressing him further, then decided to take a step back for now. Haste always ruined things, as the saying went. He sensed neither alarm nor hostility from the man, so he could afford to wait patiently for an opportunity.

A little later, the House Head’s daughter, who looked about Turan’s age, led him to the monster enclosures.

“You must have quite a lot of money for a fallen noble, if you can afford a monster.”

Unlike the fairly courteous House Head, this young lady made no effort to hide her disdain. Turan paid her no attention. Not because he could plainly see how much weaker her mana was than his, but because his mind was full of other thoughts.

‘Who did I remind him of?’

Turan could find plenty of resemblances between himself and his mother’s face in his memories: the slender shape of her face, her well-shaped mouth, her rather large ears, and her ash-gray hair.

But there were many differences too. The shape and color of his eyes, the form of his nose...

Parents did not necessarily pass their features directly down to their children, but Turan would privately imagine his father’s face from the features he did not share with his mother.

Whom had the Dirmin House Head seen in Turan’s face? His father? His mother? Or someone connected to either of them?

If the House Head knew them, they were unlikely to be of low status.

While he was lost in these thoughts, they arrived at the enclosures.

“Here we are.”

“Impressive.”

Contrary to his expectations, the enclosures were quite luxurious. He had imagined the monsters kept in plain stone chambers behind iron bars, but each had a private enclosure planted with grass and trees, with a stream running alongside it.

Forcing the thoughts from his mind, Turan inspected the monsters one by one.

‘A wolf... Too small to ride. An elephant—absurdly large. Too much trouble. The horse... looks nowhere near tilly in either size or mana. Is this one a snake?’

He examined the creatures, but none struck him as the one he wanted. He asked the horse’s price just in case, and received a staggering answer.

“That one? We’ve put considerable care into raising it, so we would have to ask about four thousand gold coins.”

Turan had eight hundred Zahar gold coins and a little over nine hundred Karmine gold coins. Even allowing for Karmine coins being slightly larger than Zahar ones, and the few other coins he had, his entire fortune amounted to less than half the horse’s price.

He immediately regretted thinking himself rich enough to have no further need of money. Just how expensive was tilly, whose abilities far outstripped this horse’s?

‘Well, being worth that much explains how tilly protected Asiz against two wraith sorcerers alone.’

Of course, tilly would ultimately have lost without Turan’s help, but even so, that was remarkably powerful for a monster.

Buying a monster seemed terribly poor value. Would he be better off seeking a house that made magic tools?

But traveling across the desert carrying that chest of money would itself be a nuisance, and there was no reason to think their wares would be any cheaper.

After wandering around for some time, Turan stopped at the sight of one creature.

A black eagle covered in sleek, dark-brown feathers was staring straight at him.