The Shepherd Alone on the Hill is a Genius Wizard-Chapter 122: Banquet Revelations (2)

While Meisa stiffened at Turan’s answer, a young man called out to Turan from behind.

"Excuse me, are you Turan? You really came back! It’s been a while, you remember me, right?"

Turan pondered for a moment who it was before realizing it was Marvin, who had hunted monkey masu with him.

The young man who was the previous head’s nephew and current head’s brother.

"It’s been a while, Marvin."

"Yes. By the way, who are these people?"

"They’re friends traveling with me. This is Sol and Misha."

"Ah, yes..."

Marvin quickly looked over Solif and Meisa, then stared intently at Meisa for a while before immediately projecting his mana.

Of course, his mana that had already reached its limit before was still at the low noble level like past Turan.

At this, the two exchanged glances before likewise projecting their mana.

"Ugh!"

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Startled by the incoming pressure, Marvin let out an exclamation and stepped back, then left his seat as if embarrassed by his unseemly behavior, his face reddening.

"Ahem, um... excuse me. I think my brother is calling me, so I’ll be going."

Glancing at Marvin’s retreating figure after making excuses, Turan turned to the two and asked.

"How much did you show?"

"A bit above intermediate, upper-intermediate?"

"I went all the way to advanced level."

"That’s too strong. No wonder he was surprisingly shocked. That level would stand out, so reduce it next time."

As he said, the two disguised their abilities by revealing only a portion instead of fully projecting their mana.

This was one of Baraha’s secrets that Solif had taught.

The principle was roughly to imagine multiple mirrors reflecting mana inside the body, then project mana while reflecting it several times to reduce the power that showed.

Of course, they couldn’t make themselves appear stronger than their actual ability.

Without this technique, it would have been awkward to prove their status by projecting mana anywhere.

Though these frontier nobles’ insight would have difficulty noticing they were great house heir-level mages, rumors would still spread about several powerful nobles suddenly appearing.

Shortly after, the banquet began with Baltas Head Gilon sitting in the seat of honor.

"Come now, eat plenty!"

"Thank you for your hospitality."

After greeting on behalf of the group, Turan enjoyed the unique food culture of the western wasteland region that could be called his homeland after a long time.

Though not as much as the Gray Zone, this area also raised many sheep, so there was plenty of lamb ribs and sheep’s milk cheese.

Of course, Meisa only drank water while reading the atmosphere appropriately, and Solif also didn’t seem to care much for lamb, trying it a few times before turning his attention to seasoned pork ribs and such.

"So, were you satisfied with visiting the library after so long?"

"Yes. It’s still good. Lots to see..."

Turan made small talk with the head while savoring a glass of strong distilled liquor he had drunk before.

The topic was the recent war in this land involving the two houses of Hardit and Corel.

"Actually, I heard from afar that Hardit was in danger, but when I came here I was quite surprised to hear they won instead. Baltas supported Hardit too, right?"

"Indeed. Thanks to that we gained another city, but we’re troubled by the lack of bloodline members to govern it."

"You don’t have to tell me if it’s a secret, but was there some kind of secret weapon? It can’t be easy to reverse a losing battle."

What Turan was curious about was whether anyone knew about his act of annihilating Corel’s army.

Though he had perfectly concealed the evidence at the time, there was always the possibility of something unexpected.

Gilon answered with a somewhat blank expression.

"There was an incident where Corel house’s elite forces suddenly disappeared during movement. There were opinions that perhaps a masu so powerful even nobles would have difficulty handling it had appeared, so we even had a ceasefire."

"I see such a thing happened."

"It ended up as an unexplained disappearance... but be careful when traveling. You never know where you might encounter such monsters. There’s also a reward if you find traces of them. Of course, we’d have to recover any magic devices."

Perhaps they thought there was a secretive and dangerous masu that left no traces after devouring its prey.

Well, given how diverse masu species were, the existence of such a creature wasn’t impossible.

In fact, there had been similar content about creatures with such abilities in the masu guide recently.

Like bats that could transform into mist and surround a wide area to eat all kinds of creatures, or snakes that could open enormous mouths to devour entire villages.

After exchanging drinks a few more times while chatting about the war, Gilon muttered with a slightly reddened face.

Though being nobles they wouldn’t become completely drunk from liquor, it still had some mood-elevating effects.

"Ah, war... truly terrible! Even I almost died several times and we had many casualties in our house starting with my uncle. Izella lost her life then too. Come to think of it, my uncle wanted to match you with Izella, didn’t he?"

"Keck!"

As soon as Gilon finished speaking, Solif who had been gnawing on pork ribs suddenly coughed heavily.

For some reason, he could feel Meisa beside him staring intently at him.

"He did. Though I already declined."

"If you had accepted that proposal, you might be sitting in my place instead. So I was wondering, would you consider taking my daughter? Though unfortunately she only inherited knight-level mana, it wouldn’t be bad to strengthen ties between houses by taking her as a concubine. After all, we nobles are better suited to settled lives enjoying prosperity than wandering."

At the proposal similar to what Head Lug had made before, Turan gave a bitter smile and shook his head.

"I appreciate the offer but I prefer being free for now."

"That’s a shame. My other two guests, Sol and Misha was it? The offer is valid for you as well, please think about it."

When Solif and Meisa expressed their refusal in their own ways to Gilon’s proposal, the atmosphere in the banquet hall dampened somewhat.

As he had felt before, people in this house had a talent for bothering others with troublesome proposals.

Marvin had probably told them about the two’s power, but they seemed to lack nobles in the house to the point they would risk even losing control of the house.

Well, if he remembered correctly, House Baltas had seven or eight nobles and at least two of them had died.

Turan continued conversing on appropriate topics for a while before bringing up what he wanted to ask about.

"By the way, was there anyone who used the library before us? Something seemed different from before."

"Hm? As far as I know, facilities getting slightly damaged or books being disorganized should sort themselves out. Did several books get damaged?"

"No, not that, just... how should I put it, the atmosphere seemed somewhat different."

It was quite frustrating having to beat around the bush since he couldn’t mention the librarian’s existence.

Gilon slowly opened his mouth while hesitantly twisting his beard with one hand.

"Well... I suppose it’s fine to talk about it now since it’s in the past. There was another visitor about a month ago. We weren’t letting anyone in because of the war then, but they were too big a figure to refuse."

"A big figure? Did someone from a great house come?"

At Turan’s question, Gilon opened his eyes wide as if surprised how he knew and said:

"Exactly right. A noble from House Nagin in the north. Their name was Renode, I believe?"

At Gilon’s words, Turan urgently turned his gaze to Meisa.

Wasn’t Renode Nagin the son of Arabion’s head and Meisa’s half-brother who had been adopted into House Nagin?

The one Meisa had sent a letter calling him ’murderer’ in her childhood rage.

As if proving Turan’s memory wasn’t wrong, Meisa’s blue eyes filled with a cold murderous intent upon hearing that name.