Chapter 34

After the gathering ended and he returned to his quarters, Turan stroked the black eagle's head, lost in thought. Zahar's second-in-command, a man he resembled so closely that House Head Karl had thought of him the moment he saw Turan's face...

He certainly wasn't someone Turan could go straight to see. Being the second-in-command of a great house meant he was a more powerful wizard even than Maysa. If he considered Turan a stain to be erased, or something of the sort, Turan would surely be crushed like a bug the moment his existence came to light.

'Still... having one solid lead isn't bad.'

At least he now had someone to seek out and question once he grew stronger. There was no need to rush. By a wizard's standards, he was not merely young but a child, and he had plenty of time.

Turan spent several more days at the Dirmin palace. Staying a few days was only polite when accepting hospitality. Teaching the black eagle its letters was entertaining enough that the time flew by.

"I am a black eagle."

[I am a black eagle]

"Good, well written."

[Gud well written]

"That wasn't something I wanted you to copy. And you spelled it wrong."

By the afternoon of the third day, the black eagle could finally string letters together into sentences. It still tended to misspell things whenever a sentence grew even slightly longer, but this was already better than what most ignorant country folk could manage.

"Have you picked a name?"

[Not yet]

"Your name isn't 'Not Yet,' is it?"

Rather than write an answer, the black eagle shook its head as if telling him to stop making such unfunny jokes. Turan laughed at the sight, then grew serious and asked a question.

"Can you tell me now, then? Why you chose me."

The black eagle tilted its head at his question, then slowly scratched letters into the ground. It felt rather like watching a person choose their words with care.

[I lyke you your insyd fits me just rite]

"Did you mean 'like'?"

As Turan pronounced the word and wrote it on the ground, the black eagle clicked its beak and nodded.

"And you got quite a few other things wrong. You still have more to learn."

Watching the bird's crestfallen expression, Turan considered what it had just told him.

There were limits to a wizard's ability to form spiritual bonds with monsters. Those limits were proportional to the wizard's mana; bonding with stronger monsters, or more of them, would eventually leave no room for further bonds. Without such limits, Tamers would probably have bound hundreds or thousands of monsters to themselves and conquered the world long ago.

But there were several problems with attributing this to an unusually high capacity on Turan's part. For one, the heir to a great house had once come to see this bird. Someone of that standing could hardly have less mana than Turan. Besides, it had been sold before, even if it had run away afterward. Surely that meant it had formed a bond then, too.

In other words, something other than capacity was at work. Perhaps the cause lay in his inborn bloodline, a mixture of Zahar and another house...

He explained this theory, but the black eagle itself did not seem to know exactly what that feeling of fitting "just right" meant. In the midst of their conversation, booming laughter came from behind him.

"Hey, Turan! What are you doing moping about the yard with that bird?"

After their first gathering, the Gashub couple had taken no further interest in Turan, apparently deciding he was an insignificant nobody who had merely gotten lucky. The fallen noble Dolf Meren, however, had begun visiting his quarters to pester him, acting like an old friend and dispensing with formalities.

If he had merely come to visit, Turan could have entertained him for a while and sent him on his way. The problem was that he tried to grapple with Turan at every opportunity, claiming they ought to bond as fellow nobles with physically oriented bloodlines. It was painfully obvious that he had no real interest in friendship. He wanted to enjoy feeling superior by overpowering Turan in an area where he held the advantage.

In any case, today would be the last day he had to deal with this nuisance. When Turan stood and turned, Dolf tilted his head at the sight of his clothes.

"Hmm? Going somewhere?"

Turan was fully dressed, with the long white outer robe worn by the locals over his clothes and a bag slung at his side. A long metal rod had been newly attached to the side of the bag. The black eagle hopped onto it and glared at Dolf.

"I'm leaving today."

"Where to?"

"I thought I'd travel around the desert."

"You could have told me! I'm hurt, considering how close we are."

Turan made it abundantly clear that he did not want to continue the conversation, but Dolf ignored that and kept acting friendly.

"I was thinking of leaving soon myself. Need someone to show you the way? I know this area inside out."

"No, thank you."

A noble guide would certainly be a luxury, but traveling with this man would drive him to an early grave out of sheer frustration. Surprisingly, Dolf accepted the refusal with an easy nod.

"What a shame. Let me know if you change your mind!"

His suspiciously cheerful farewell and departure left Turan uneasy, but at least he had gotten rid of him. After informing House Head Karl that he was leaving, Turan walked out of the palace, followed by two knights who had come to see him off. Rather than leave Komad immediately, he addressed one of the knights, whose duty was as much to watch him as to escort him.

"Could you show me somewhere that sells books?"

"Yes, Master."

Komad's largest bookshop stood near the harbor. Books were expensive goods, so a guard stood at the entrance. He froze at the sight of Turan approaching with a large black eagle at his side and two knights in tow.

"Uh, er..."

"Let's go in."

Turan passed him and entered the shop, where he spoke briefly with the middle-aged woman who appeared to be the owner and bought two books: a travelogue that doubled as a guide for desert travelers, and a book on the religion of the Enril region. He paid for them by trading in the two books he had bought in Abacha.

Coming out with his new books, Turan glanced to one side and frowned faintly. Among the people he perceived as no more than feeble flames, a single blaze burned bright.

* * *

Out beyond Komad, with the cool winter desert wind blowing against him, Turan opened one of his new books. A Guide for Desert Travelers, by Britso Zahar. Reading the dedication to the patron—the most important part of any book—he discovered that it had actually been written by a Zahar knight with the main house's support.

'A proper map would have been nice... but this isn't bad either.'

A mere fallen noble could hardly ask for a map of a great house's interior territory unless he wanted to be accused of spying. Even the map Keorn had drawn for him had only indicated roughly which great house occupied which region, rather than accurately depicting the terrain.

After reading the travelogue for some time, Turan decided to head first to a city called Banipel, southwest of Komad. He had read that it contained ruins from none other than the old empire. It would be wonderful if he were lucky enough to meet a being like the library's librarian, but even without that, it sounded worth visiting.

"Well, shall we get going?"

Murmuring to himself, Turan looked down at the black eagle for a moment. Instead of riding it, he gave its head a gentle stroke and set off on his own two feet as before. The eagle cocked its head as though wondering why he wasn't riding it, but being carried along on his bag apparently wasn't so bad either. It tucked in its neck and closed its eyes.

Walking through the desert, he realized it was not a world filled only with sand, as the travelogue he had read before had suggested. He quite often encountered stretches strewn with rocks and gravel, reminiscent of the wasteland beneath Hisaril Hill back home.

When he focused on his surroundings through the Holy Relic, he could sense the flames of life even in that desolate landscape. Indeed, a great house could never have arisen in a region so barren that nothing could live there. Animals had to thrive for many monsters to be born, and consuming those monsters was what allowed powerful wizards to grow.

Turan used the Holy Relic to distinguish a monster among the passing animals, then immediately sent the black eagle to hunt it. The bird flew like an arrow and snatched up a large gray-furred rabbit.

'Of all things, a rabbit monster.'

Fortunately, unlike the one that had slaughtered the monster hunters, this rabbit was not particularly strong and had no chance to fight back. Its mana was correspondingly weak and did little to help the eagle grow, but the bird apparently enjoyed the hunt regardless. It chirped as it tore the rabbit apart and devoured its flesh. Turan uncapped his water bottle and poured out some water, manipulating it to wash the blood from the bird's feet.

Several hours of walking later, near sunset, Turan discovered a lush spot at odds with the desert's desolation. It was a sizable oasis, surrounded by a small grove and grassland nourished by its waters.

According to the travelogue, the Enril Desert held thousands of such oases, and nomadic tribes used them as bases. Here alone, dozens of tents ringed the oasis, with tethered sheep resting all around them. Though they lived in a different region, these people were shepherds just as he was.

"I'm a traveler passing through. Might I stop here to rest?"

The nomads were wary of Turan at first, but relaxed when they realized he was alone and had no real weapons, apart from the large black eagle accompanying him. The forearm-length dagger on his back was hardly considered a weapon; it was more of an everyday tool.

"Welcome, traveler. May the kindness I offer return to me in full. But that black eagle—is it a monster?"

"Of course not. It's just a little large, that's all."

Lying without batting an eye, Turan accepted an invitation into the elderly chief's tent and had a meal. The nomads, too, considered poor hospitality a disgrace, so he enjoyed a fairly lavish dinner. Naturally, it could not compare with a noble house's table in either quantity or quality.

"Where have you come from, brother?"

"Komad."

"Isn't that the big city by the sea? You look young to have come so far alone."

Of course, Turan had done no more than jog lightly for three or four hours, but for a commoner it was a journey of several days of nonstop walking. The village chief continued to pry into where he was going and what he did, eventually even suggesting that he marry one of the tribe's young women and stay.

Wondering why, Turan noticed that the tribe seemed unusually short of young men for its size. He could imagine any number of reasons: attacks by monsters or wild beasts, bandits, or perhaps some natural disaster...

It was hard to imagine such a thing on the Dakayn Plains, but Arabion, with its dense population supported by highly productive land, could hardly be compared to Zahar, whose domain was the vast Enril Desert. The area a single noble or knight was responsible for protecting would differ severalfold or more.

Having finished his meal while deftly evading the chief's meddling, Turan announced that he would continue southwest.

"You mean to walk through the desert after sundown in winter? You'll freeze to death! That's madness. Stay here for the night."

Despite the old man's protests, Turan declined and set off. It wasn't particularly because he thought the chief might sneak a young woman into his tent in the middle of the night. Rather...

"Come out, Dolf."

As he left the oasis behind, Turan looked back and spoke quietly. Before long, Dolf Meren emerged from behind a rock with a sheepish expression.

"Well, well. You knew?"

Thanks to the Holy Relic, Turan could pinpoint the location of any noble or knight within a dozen or so meters, or tens to hundreds of meters if he extended his senses. And those senses told him Dolf had been following him ever since he left House Dirmin.

That was why he had walked all this way instead of riding the black eagle. Flying would have let him shake Dolf off for the moment, but he would never have learned why the man was following him. He had intended to flee immediately if Dolf showed any sign of bringing companions, but even after extending his senses hundreds of meters, he detected no one else.

"I just thought it might be dangerous for a young fellow to travel alone. This desert can be quite perilous, you know..."

"Are you after my mana?"

Turan hated dragging out a conversation, so he went straight to the point. Sure enough, Dolf immediately dropped his mask and grinned.

"You knew, and you still came out here? I can't tell if you're brave or just too stupid to be scared."

Murder to steal mana. Among nobles, it was regarded as the worst of all taboos, worse even than cannibalism or infanticide. It reminded them that a noble's most tempting prey was not a monster, but another noble.

The mere rumor that someone had done such a thing would turn every nearby noble against not only the culprit but their entire house, enough to extinguish the bloodline before long. The importance noble houses placed on hospitality could be seen as an extension of that sentiment.

"Now I see why nobles recoil at the mention of fallen nobles."

"Heh. You talk as though you're above me, when you're in the same boat. No, aren't you even worse off than I am?"

Dolf sneered down at him.

"With all that mana and such pathetic strength, you must have a primordial guardian bloodline. Nothing left but defense—you've even lost the power to strengthen your body. I don't know how you built up that much power, but it's wasted on a worthless husk like you. Hand it over quietly."

Despite his guardian bloodline, Turan's physical abilities were abysmal, making him easy to defeat. Yet his mana was actually a little greater than Dolf's, promising a reward well worth the effort. Better still, he was another fallen noble, with no relatives to investigate his death, avenge him, or make the matter public. Where else could Dolf find such tempting prey?

Turan watched Dolf approach at a leisurely pace, then turned his gaze skyward. It was a moonless night, and only the faintest starlight illuminated the desert.

"Stay up there."

With a chirp, the black eagle promptly soared into the sky. Dolf flinched, fearing Turan might ride it to escape—and in that instant, Turan vanished into the pitch-black darkness.

He was not the only one who thought his opponent looked like tempting prey.