The Shepherd Alone on the Hill is a Genius Wizard

Chapter 18 I Can Do It Too

'Causality' was an extremely complex element in using magic.

Whether the phenomenon to be caused was natural, whether the user clearly recognized the cause of the magical phenomenon, whether the amount of magical power consumed was appropriate to cause that phenomenon...

Among these, the ability to recognize the cause of phenomena was an important factor that simultaneously affected both the success rate of magic and magical power consumption, making whether one knew it or not a very significant difference.

The problem was that understanding the principles of 'decay' was almost impossible from external observation.

Even Turan only recognized the existence of microorganisms after looking through magnification magic learned from the librarian.

Moreover, there was an unintended trap: casting decay on a living animal was incomparably more difficult than using it on something like fruit.

'That was dangerous.'

Turan realized he had consumed over a third of his magical power as he put down the rat that had rotted while still alive.

What was the difference between a living rat and an apple?

The absence of continuous life force supply? Animal versus plant?

It was difficult to guess the exact reason since he hadn't used this magic often.

Perhaps he could understand more thoroughly if he tried the magic on a dead animal's corpse later...

Anyway, for now, he had to act as if he had succeeded effortlessly without revealing this.

"Good, now it's my turn."

As Meisa said this and made a light gesture, a gentle breeze began blowing over the garden.

Shortly after, unfortunately for it, a rat that had been prowling around the garden's edge came flying over flailing and landed neatly in her hand.

[Crackle!]

She too attempted the same magic as Turan, but the rat only twisted its body trying to escape without showing any particular reaction.

"Hmm..."

Meisa held a rat in each hand and rolled her protruding eyes back and forth between them.

As if trying to find what difference there was between the two.

Seeing this grotesque sight, Asiz, who had been freed from the vines by now, spoke with a disgusted expression.

"Why use such magic of all things? It's really creepy."

"It was just the first thing that came to mind."

Actually, the reason he chose this magic was because it had little practical use.

After all, there would rarely be time to grab an opponent and wait several seconds during a fight between wizards.

He also wanted to gauge how much knowledge House Arabion had about natural laws.

'I wondered, but even a great house like Arabion... don't they know?'

When learning ancient knowledge from the librarian, Turan had suspected that long-established wizard houses would monopolize such knowledge.

After all, wizards who knew this could gain absolute advantage over those who didn't.

But contrary to expectations, Meisa didn't seem to know these things very well.

Was it because she was young and her learning was shallow? Or perhaps...

"Looks like you can't do it, Meisa. How about we call it Turan's win?"

While Turan was lost in thought, Asiz spoke to Meisa, who was frowning while holding the rat, in a somewhat teasing tone.

The moment she heard this, her eyes, which always had melancholy and languor underlying them, sharpened.

"I can do it too."

Meisa took a light breath and glared at the rat with piercing eyes.

One way to compensate for insufficient causality in using magic was to input massive amounts of magical power to make up for inefficiency with quantity.

In an extreme example, a powerful wizard at the level of a great house head could even instantly kill an ordinary knight with a single word, as if killing an animal.

Though they would have to nearly exhaust themselves to pay the price of killing just one person.

"Just a little more..."

Meisa kept praying while gripping the rat.

Rot, rot, rot while alive—

How much power had she invested, not minding her magical power being drained rapidly as she attempted an inefficient magic she was unfamiliar with and didn't properly understand the principles of?

Finally, the healthy rat began to rot.

Though slower than what Turan had done earlier, it was clearly the same phenomenon.

"Oh, you did it?"

Beside Asiz who exclaimed in admiration, Turan too widened his eyes in surprise.

Could it be that she had realized the secret of decay magic was 'growth and enhancement of microorganisms that rot living things'?

"...I did it."

At that moment, Meisa collapsed to the ground after saying those words.

While the rat that had escaped from her hand ran away screaming, Turan and Asiz quickly moved to support her.

"Meisa! What's wrong!? Open your eyes!"

While Asiz called out urgently, Turan analyzed her face and body condition.

'What's the reason? Too much magical power used? But depleting magical power shouldn't cause collapse.'

Turan had depleted his magical power several times while practicing magic in his childhood but had never fainted from it.

He had just suffered from exhaustion because he didn't even have power left to enhance his body...

Along with that thought, seeing Meisa's skeletal body made something occur to him.

An involuntary exclamation of admiration.

Hearing this, Haram suddenly stopped his sword practice and stared at him.

"Ah, I'm sorry. Was I disturbing you?"

"No."

Despite saying this, instead of resuming his sword training, Haram just kept staring intently at Turan.

After a moment of silence, he suddenly spoke up.

"Are you interested in swordsmanship?"

"What?"

What was this sudden random question?

Turan was briefly confused but answered honestly.

"Interest... I'm not sure, but I did think it looked impressive."

"I see."

After responding curtly, Haram drew his sword again, performed a few more movements, then spoke.

"Most nobles look down on martial arts or weapon skills. Since it's easier and stronger to attack directly with magic. They think such things are only for knights to learn."

"Well, it is somewhat inefficient unless you have a bloodline specialized for close combat."

Nobles were divided into those skilled at applying power to their own bodies according to bloodline and those skilled at projecting it outward, with most being the latter, making nobles skilled in close combat rare.

Turan's bloodline too, if defining the ratio between ranged and close-range abilities, was about 7:3, making him relatively adept at projecting magic at a distance.

"But in actual combat, you sometimes find yourself in situations where you have to face it even if you want to avoid it."

Turan spoke while recalling when he had kicked the leopard Masu on the hill and when he had slashed the rabbit Masu's throat.

But hearing this, Haram tilted his head and suddenly held out his sword to him in reverse grip.

"Would you like to try?"

"I'm here because I'm a suspicious person, is it alright to give me a weapon?"

"You're not a warrior, so it doesn't matter."

Turan had to turn this words over in his mind several times before understanding their meaning.

Since he obviously looked like he would be terrible at using a sword, it didn't matter whether he was given one or not.

Seeing those dazzling sword movements earlier, it was hard to consider this arrogance.

If they both held swords and fought without magic, it was clear that even ten Turans wouldn't be a match for him.

"Well then..."

Turan awkwardly gripped the longsword with both hands and took the stance and movements as Haram instructed.

Unlike magic that worked as desired on the first try, even he could feel how clumsy his movements were with this.

"That's not it, extend your front leg more—"

"Your elbow is too high. You'll cut your thigh with the sword that way."

"Raise your arms more."

Haram, who had seemed taciturn at first, became surprisingly talkative once he started teaching swordsmanship.

After about thirty minutes of learning basic swordsmanship, Turan returned the sword while massaging his sore wrist.

"Here you go. I'd like to practice more but it's tough..."

"This sword is adjusted to my bloodline. It's heavy for ordinary nobles."

No wonder – with a normal iron sword, he shouldn't have had trouble wielding it for three hours, let alone thirty minutes.

Could this swordsman have been trying to prevent escape by draining his stamina under the pretense of sword training?

While he was internally suspicious, Haram spoke advisingly to him as he rubbed his forearm.

"If possible, it would be good to take time to train your body too. Though magical power guarantees some physical ability even without exercise, there's still a big difference between properly building strength or not."

Certainly, if a situation ever came where he had to resort to close combat in a truly urgent moment, learning some of these skills would probably help.

Though he would be no match fighting against someone with a bloodline specialized for close combat like Haram before him, it could become another weapon when fighting someone with similar power levels.

While learning exercises to loosen overworked muscles at the end, the temple door opened and Head Midela entered.

She first bowed her head politely and apologized.

"I apologize for much rudeness, Sir Turan. We have done wrong to our benefactor."

"I see the lady is safe. I should be the one apologizing. My behavior was inappropriate as a guest."

Turan received Midela's apology with a gentle attitude.

It was a reasonably appropriate measure given the situation where their serving house's successor had suddenly collapsed.

Hearing their conversation, Haram nodded and spoke.

"Good that nothing happened."

"Thank you for your work, Haram."

"I must follow the head's orders. Then, I'll take my leave."

Haram gave a quick bow to the head and immediately left the temple.

"I hope Haram wasn't rude. He's such a blunt person, though he meant no ill will."

"Rather, I received his teaching."

At Turan's answer, Midela nodded with a faint smile, then brought up something unexpected.

"That's good to hear. By the way... Meisa said she wanted to apologize to you, would you be able to spare some time?"