The Shepherd Alone on the Hill is a Genius Wizard

Chapter 84 To Remove One Thorn (2)

After solidifying the liquefied gold and silver into lumps and measuring their size and weight, each came to over ten kilograms.

They would probably be worth considerable wealth once refined into currency or ingots.

However, his original purpose for coming here was saltpeter.

Turan frowned upon checking the amount of saltpeter secured.

'This is too little...'

Perhaps because it was just a byproduct they mined, the amount of saltpeter powder was only about ten kilograms.

Considering it was the main component of fire spirits, he needed at least tens of times more to feel secure.

Turan picked up a miner's pickaxe and went deeper into the mine.

'If there's not enough, I'll just mine it myself.'

Though he'd never worked as a miner in his life, technique wasn't necessary before overwhelming power.

Each pickaxe strike imbued with magical power cracked the ground, and when the momentum threatened to collapse the tunnel, he forcibly maintained and repaired the ceiling using telekinetic magic and earth transformation.

One transcendently powerful wizard miner far exceeded the labor power of hundreds of ordinary miners.

Several hours later, Turan secured more than his target amount of saltpeter and left the mine.

"Phew... this should be enough."

[Is it all done now?]

"Yes."

[I'm tired.]

"Right, let's go back and rest."

Bize, who had been digging alongside him with her beak and talons, wrote with an exhausted expression.

After securing the large amount of saltpeter and returning to the village, the kidnapped people were busy with various tasks.

Those in poor condition were resting in the relatively intact buildings, while those who were well were preparing food from ingredients they'd found and nursing the sick.

'They're in better shape than I expected.'

He'd thought they'd just sit around blankly, but having survived even while kidnapped, they seemed to have exceptional initiative.

After confirming none of the pirates he'd buried earlier had escaped, Turan approached the kidnapped people.

They were in the middle of discussing something.

"Um, is this okay? Technically, all this food belongs to him as spoils..."

"We need to stay alive first, right? He probably doesn't need corpses, and the sick people will die if we don't feed them... oh, master wizard!"

The woman who had been lecturing a burly man noticed Turan's presence and bowed her head.

Others also stopped cooking to greet him, with some even kneeling.

While they attacked merchant ships for tolls and plunder, they didn't kidnap people, and their discipline was so strict they even punished indiscriminate fishing village raids internally.

After learning the location of their base, Turan reburied the pirates and asked the survivors once more.

Having received similar answers to the pirates, Turan informed the kidnapped people of his future plans.

"I'll ask the Red Whale pirates to help return you to your homes. It's too difficult to return everyone individually since you're all from such different places. The cost can be covered with part of the value of the minerals from the mine."

The kidnapped people came from various places, from near the Siraf Wetlands to nearby small islands, the southern Enril Desert, and eastern fishing villages.

Returning them all would take months.

Rather than that, it was better to choose someone useful among pirate groups that operated multiple ships and ask them.

One man asked with a terrified expression.

"But... will pirates keep their promise?"

"They will. If they don't want to end up like this Cobinus or whatever his name was."

Originally, Turan had planned to leave for the Dakein Plains right after securing saltpeter, but seeing what happened here changed his mind.

It was because he'd seen an evil shepherd, no different from a wolf, who kidnapped and abused other people's sheep.

While Turan couldn't chase down and annihilate all the pirates in the South Sea, it wouldn't be difficult to remove one thorn that caught his eye.

He now had the power to do so.

This would surely serve as an example to other evil shepherds as well.

==

After finalizing future plans, Turan entered the largest and widest house that the knights had used and immediately began creating fire spirits.

With dozens of trees near the village providing materials and securing charcoal powder, the preparation was perfect.

While the combination itself doesn't consume much magical power, creating several hundred kilograms worth took a full day.

This was partly because he took breaks when magical power consumption got too high, as it would be troublesome if this Cobinus fellow attacked immediately after he depleted too much magical power.

When Turan came out after completing preparations, he was greeted by the woman he had appointed as leader.

She looked at him somewhat nervously before speaking.

"M-master wizard. We've organized all the valuables in the village, would you like to check them?"

"Valuables?"

"Yes. Things from the pirates' corpses, and minerals mined from the mine that weren't sent up to their superiors."

"Ah."

Thinking about it, of course they wouldn't have stored all the mined minerals in the mine, so this was natural.

Being so focused on fire spirits, he hadn't thought about what might still be in storage without being collected.

Following her to the warehouse, Turan was greeted by precious metals several times the amount he had refined from the mine yesterday.