The Shepherd Alone on the Hill is a Genius Wizard

Chapter 37 Wave Handler, Mimicker

In the distant ancient past, giants ruled the fertile Enril Plains, and their massive bodies devoured everything until it became a desert.

The giants, who needed to drink enormous amounts of water daily, could not overcome their thirst and enslaved humans to extract and drink their blood, killing thousands each day.

However, on a pitch-black night when even the moon did not rise, the Night Hunter of the Prea god-folk came and shot all the giants to death, thus saving humanity.

The liberated humans offered their three most beautiful maidens as brides, and the three children born from them each inherited the power to hide their bodies, the power to handle shadows, and the power to create poison.

After the Night Hunter ascended, the three brothers fought over who would succeed their father in ruling the desert.

The eldest, who could hide his body, left because he did not want to fight his brothers, but the second who handled shadows and the third who created poison fought fiercely, throwing the desert into chaos and causing many people to fall into grief.

Finally, the eldest returned and defeated his two younger brothers to claim supremacy over the desert; he became the ancestor of Zahar...

[You]

[Are not]

[The Night Hunter]

At these auditory hallucinations coming from far away, Turan recalled the contents of the religious text he had bought at the bookstore in Komad.

Why was that god's name suddenly being mentioned?

'Is there some connection with the Zahar nobles already inside?'

Considering it, while Turan was also a distant descendant of the Night Hunter, given his mixed bloodline with another, he could hardly be considered pure Zahar.

After pondering this while advancing through the black space for several minutes, Turan's senses detected an alien life form.

Based on his experience using the holy relic so far, ordinary creatures had small flames blooming in their hearts, while wizards and magical beasts felt as if that flame had spread throughout their bodies.

And though it was his only example, judging from when he saw the merman Arma, heteromorphic races appeared to have flames attached to different body parts from humans.

But the interior of the being he sensed now resembled none of these.

Should he say it was like a large shell empty inside, with flames flowing like water to move the body?

It looked as if blue flames were controlling it from inside a doll.

As Turan carefully approached it, the life form buried in darkness was revealed before his eyes.

[□□□-]

The first thing that caught his eye was the asymmetrical eyes.

Two glass beads, one too large and one small, rolled around independently scanning the surroundings.

The nose was just a sunken hole, the mouth was oval-shaped and spread wide with saw-like teeth embedded inside, and the two arms and legs were long with an extra joint each, creaking unstably.

The mucus flowing over the peeled skin looked highly viscous even at a glance, seeming difficult to wipe off once it stuck.

A life form with a twisted appearance that caused discomfort just by looking at it.

But when Turan took one step closer to examine it more carefully, suddenly the creature recognized him, whipping its head around and screaming.

[■□■□■□!]

As if that single scream made everyone aware of Turan, three or four monsters approached with alien movements and immediately swung what could be called large hands or forelegs.

Their speed and force were enough to overwhelm even ordinary nobles.

"Kuk!"

As he accelerated his thoughts, he saw fingers that numbered five like humans, and the hook claws attached to their tips.

While leaning back to avoid those slowly approaching things, Turan created sparks by rubbing his hands together, then radiated them forward without stabilizing their form.

Perhaps being unaccustomed to light and heat from living in darkness, they screamed and retreated from the fire.

'How did they detect me?'

He was currently maintaining the Zahar bloodline's complete invisibility magic.

Using invisibility magic in such darkness was almost as simple as breathing.

In other words, these monsters had the power to see through even Zahar invisibility.

Fortunately, their range of awareness wasn't very wide.

When he moved about twenty meters away, to a distance where he couldn't be seen and could only be sensed, the monsters lost him and looked around before dispersing.

'Good, we have first strike advantage for now.'

In the pitch darkness, Turan loaded a stone into his sling while watching the afterimages of blue flames flowing here and there.

With plenty of time to prepare, he could infuse sufficient magical power while spinning the stone several times.

Though it wasn't a particularly good method since efficiency dropped sharply compared to power input after a certain point, it was useful when needing to silence someone accurately in one shot.

'Take this!'

The sling stone thrown with about a tenth of his magical power instantly caved in the monster's head.

Turan approached after confirming the other nearby monsters didn't react to the attack.

'Good, it's dead.'

The stone had precisely pierced through the center of the face covered in mucous skin and exited through the back of the head.

After retrieving the stone that had fallen behind, Turan returned to where the corpse was and attempted to absorb its magical power.

Before long, he felt power seeping into his body.

'At least it's definitely a magical creature...'

"Imelda, keep illuminating our surroundings."

"Even with my bloodline ability being suited for this, the magical power consumption isn't small..."

"We have to endure it. Better than having our throats cut while sleeping, right?"

"Well, that's true but..."

Imelda, a noble with the Illusion bloodline that handled light, spread bright light at Ferga's command.

Though due to the labyrinth's inherent darkness such light couldn't extend beyond twenty meters or so, the unknown assassin also wouldn't be able to detect them from outside that range anyway.

And if they came within range, they wouldn't be able to maintain invisibility long in this tremendous white light.

"Remember. If anyone gets attacked, create light and shoot it toward that area."

Everyone nodded at Ferga's instructions.

However, there was one person shaking his head - Turan, who was standing behind them.

'They're working really hard to prepare among themselves.'

While Ferga was passionately giving instructions, Turan was listening to all their conversation while invisible from just slightly over twenty meters away.

Thanks to the holy relic's power, he could clearly observe their movements and maintain distance.

Turan gauged their strength through the size of their flames.

While the magical power of the nine people who seemed to be friends or vassals was similar to or much weaker than Turan's, Ferga alone possessed more than twice Turan's power.

That level of power was probably what only top-ranking experts in great houses possessed.

'For now I should keep my distance and look for a way to escape.'

Leaving behind those who were setting traps and spreading light to search, Turan moved into the darkness.

==

Three days passed as Turan and Ferga's group lived an strange coexistence in the dark labyrinth.

Fortunately, the traps set by the noble with the Barrier Maker bloodline weren't much of an obstacle.

This was because the traps were clearly visible thanks to the holy relic detecting even magical power used in magic.

Rather, there were times when they suffered from stepping on their own traps because the pitch darkness prevented them from clearly knowing where they had moved.

Moreover, with one noble of the Illusion bloodline becoming essentially useless due to constantly maintaining light, Turan had unintentionally ended up wearing down their strength.

If there was one inconvenience, it was that he couldn't sleep comfortably.

Unlike Ferga's group who could take turns standing watch because there were many of them, if he got caught by aberrant life forms or other nobles during deep sleep, he would be dead.

At least he was somewhat used to sleeping lightly while camping outdoors, so he could manage.

Unlike Ferga's group who couldn't even gauge direction in the darkness, Turan could slowly expand his search range using certain locations as bases thanks to the holy relic's power.

Sometimes certain directions would be blocked by too many aberrant life forms to break through by killing them one by one, and at these times he borrowed Ferga group's strength.

"They're coming again!"

"Damn, seems like the number of attacks has increased."

"Probably because we're keeping the light on."

He could easily lure them by throwing fireballs to draw the monsters' attention, then dropping invisibility and running at full speed until encountering Ferga's group, narrowly turning aside at the last moment.

Though they got the monsters' magical power, he wasn't particularly disappointed since they didn't give much power anyway when caught.

This cycle repeated - exploring opened spaces, returning to rest in suitable areas, observing Ferga's group - and then vagrants carrying food and water would enter from beyond the ruins.

They would track the vagrants who entered using scent, then naturally take their lives and seize their food and water.

"Since they keep sending them, we're starting to have excess. This too."

"They're probably sending assuming even the knights are still alive."

"If we'd known this would happen, should we have kept some alive instead of letting them die? It's inconvenient not having anyone to take care of things."

"Don't say things you don't mean."

Judging from their conversation, it seemed all the knights who had entered together had been abandoned to the monsters.

Turan recalled how the nobles of House Baltas had used their knights as shields.

These people laughing about the dead knights before him were even more contemptible beings than those two nobles then.

Perhaps it was fortunate that he didn't need to feel guilty about driving monsters toward them.

After about two more days of uncomfortable coexistence and exploration, a huge door appeared before Turan's eyes.

With a width of four meters and height of about seven meters, it seemed suited for giants...

As he approached, a large eyeball appeared in the middle of the gate and spoke while looking down at Turan.

[You, Hunter, Pursuer.]

[Conditions not met.]

After saying this, its gaze moved slightly down from Turan's face.

[Wave Handler, Mimicker.]

[Conditions met.]

[Will you enter?]