The Shaman
“Mage-nim!”
As he returned to the village, a soldier from Baron Ogier's retinue urgently sought Joseph.
“Mage-nim. Baron has been looking for you.”
Joseph's expression turned curious at those words.
He didn't interrupt Joseph who needed to focus on training for a while.
Calling him meant something had happened.
Immediately heading to Ogier's house, Refn was already waiting there.
In addition, the room had Ogier, Arke, and some unfamiliar faces.
They seemed like villagers, but their appearance was quite shabby.
They hadn't bathed for a long time, emitting a foul stench, and their skin was swollen and blistered in places.
One had a cloth wrapped around his hand, and the cloth was stained yellow, suggesting pus.
“Hah!”
But when they saw Joseph enter, they started trembling as if about to faint.
What the...?
Joseph was also taken aback by their overtly fearful demeanor toward him.
“Uh, ugh...”
They couldn't sit still and soon prostrated themselves on the floor.
“...?”
“Survivors of Malešov.”
“Wait, survivors existed?”
“The scouts found them wandering outside the village.”
They said they were those who survived when the demonic beasts attacked the village.
But due to the winter weather, they couldn't flee far.
They just wandered eating tree bark and weeds to escape the cold and met the scouts.
They survived bravely.
“But why are you acting like this to me?”
Joseph asked while looking down at the prostrated men.
But Ogier was also puzzled by it.
Until just now, they had been cautious, but not this terrified.
“Raise your heads.”
Even though Ogier commanded them, they kept their heads down, trembling.
While doing so, they kept glancing at Joseph's eyes.
“Ignoring my words?! Do you want to die?!”
At that sight, Ogier snapped in irritation, and they quickly swallowed and jumped up.
Soon, one of the refugees who seemed the least damaged spoke up.
“S-sorry! We thought you were the mage who came to the village...”
“Mage?”
At those words, Ogier and Joseph widened their eyes.
“Did you see another mage?”
“Y-yes...”
“Tell us everything from the beginning!”
This was a shocking piece of news.
Ogier urged him, and the man hesitated a moment before starting to speak.
“Y-yes, a while ago, a sudden mage appeared.”
“How did you know he was a mage?”
“H-he was wearing a long robe and holding a staff...”
Instantly, the man's gaze turned to Joseph.
A mage in a robe holding a staff.
The mage in the story looked exactly like Joseph now.
“At first, we didn't know he was a mage and tried to drive him out.”
In this world, encountering a stranger alone in a village was not a pleasant thing.
Those wandering alone usually meant trouble.
Especially in this season, wandering alone likely meant a criminal expelled from another village.
“H-however, after realizing he was a mage...”
He trailed off slightly.
Joseph understood roughly how things unfolded.
In this world, mages hold an unparalleled status.
Ordinary people rarely encounter such beings in their lifetime.
So, when he visited, they must have been shocked.
“He gave money to the village chief and decided to stay in the winter village.”
He said he stayed in Malešov for a while.
At first, some looked at him with suspicion.
But after a month of quietly locking himself in his house, the interest gradually waned.
Except when getting food, he didn't interact much with the villagers.
Since he said he'd leave after winter, everyone didn't worry much.
“Then, a while ago, his house burned down.”
“Burned?”
He seemed to want to say something more and glanced around.
“How did the fire start?”
“T-that...”
Since he kept hesitating, Joseph started to get a bit irritated.
Whoosh—
Joseph waved his staff and summoned a mana orb.
“Hiiik!”
As the mana orb floated up, the man jumped back in fright.
“Speak!”
“T-the... children of the village! The kids were playing and the fire started!”
He continued hurriedly while trembling.
But his demeanor was strange.
This guy...?
This time, he was looking at Ogier's eyes, not Joseph's.
It felt different from being afraid of Joseph's existence as a mage.
He probably had a hand in starting the fire.
Arson was clearly illegal in any territory.
Because if a small fire spread and became a disaster, it would cause enormous damage to the entire territory.
Probably, this guy was among those who set the fire.
“...Understood. Keep talking.”
Ogier seemed to have noticed the same thing, but didn't ask further and just urged him.
It wasn't important right now.
“T-the mage, after his house burned, went to the village chief and talked something, then suddenly disappeared from the village.”
The residents trembled in fear, but as soon as nothing happened, they quickly calmed down.
After he left, a day passed, and the mage appeared again near the village.
With some demonic beast.
“With a demonic beast?! Really such a...”
“My guess was wrong.”
Ogier shouted in shock, but Joseph was somewhat calm.
He had thought there would be a mage controlling the beasts.
But hearing it actually made his mouth taste bitter.
“What kind of beasts were there?”
“W-walking wolf-like ones and a monster as big as a house!”
“Monster?”
“Y-yes, it looked like a big monkey, but it roared like a beast and charged...! It was a crazy monster...”
At those words, Joseph raised his eyebrows and nodded slightly.
“Ogre.”
Joseph hadn't forgotten the ogres he and the mercenaries had caught in the past.
It was a monster he couldn't forget even if he wanted to.
“That really was a crazy monster.”
Back then, they barely caught it with the mercenaries, and now there's a mage controlling such a one.
Malešov's matter might not be as easy as it seemed.
“That guy was also a problem, but especially the wolf-like ones were very cruel. They were tearing apart corpses that were already dead... Acting like they were insane.”
“Insane beasts.”
Of course, most demonic beasts didn't have proper heads.
But if it was to this extent...
“It must be that one.”
The one from the north.
It was a huge bear-like beast that shouldn't have been in the path people frequently traveled.
It was spitting saliva and hatred towards everything moving, with red eyes.
Like it was infected with rabies.
“What exactly is happening...”
Meanwhile, Ogier was recalling the kobolds he had seen hiding in Malešov.
From what he heard, it was similar to that kobold.
“So? What happened after that?”
Joseph urged him, and the man fumbled again, rolling his eyes.
“A-after that...”
He said Malešov, despite being a fairly small village, couldn't be defended.
At least the guards who could handle swords were torn in half by the ogre.
“T-that mage led the beasts around the village and eventually disappeared.”
Those who were returning from the quarry saw it from afar.
They fled Malešov immediately, and they didn't know what happened to the remaining residents.
“...”
Soon, Ogier took something from his pocket.
A broken artifact picked up from Malešov.
“Have any of you seen this in the village?”
The man thought for a moment and nodded.
“T-that... the mage sometimes appeared in the village again.”
“What?”
The refugees had gone to the village outskirts several times to check while hiding in Malešov.
They couldn't stay outside in the cold forever, and there were family members among the dead.
“At that time... I saw the mage throwing things similar to this all over the village.”
However, he seemed a bit unsure while saying it.
He had just secretly watched from afar, so he couldn't go inside to confirm.
“Wait, so is that mage still around the village?”
Ogier's eyes naturally turned to the scouts. But he had an aggrieved expression.
During his watch, there had been occasional appearances of beasts, but no humans.
“He didn't appear when we were there. Really!”
The soldier looked at the refugees suspiciously, probably worried that it meant he hadn't been properly on duty.
Then the refugee said timidly.
“Ah, if he was on the north side, he might not have been seen well.”
Indeed, the scouts were guarding the north of the village.
The mage appeared from the south forest and wandered around there.
So, he might not have been visible from the north hills.
Compared to that, the place the man was hiding was near the west of the village, close to the quarry.
The quarry was high up, and with the cut cliff, it was good for overlooking the whole village.
“Then, when was the last time you saw him?”
“A while ago. I didn't count the days... Ah! Just before we were discovered by the soldiers.”
So, even when Ogier was hiding nearby, the mage was on the south side.
At that, Ogier let out a small sigh and gestured for the refugees to leave.
“Prepare a place for these people to stay.”
At Ogier's words, the refugees' expressions brightened.
They were people who didn't have a good place to stay in the cold winter.
Of course, Ogier seemed to think of using them as soldiers, but still better than freezing to death in winter.
After the refugees left, Joseph and Ogier needed to change their plans.
It wasn't just that demonic beasts had gathered in the village, but that there was a real mage controlling them.
Entering the village with such a person head-on was foolish.
Ogier wasn't a knight who could use superhuman strength, and ordinary conscript soldiers or private soldiers wouldn't be able to withstand magic.
“Moreover, he seems quite sinister.”
At Refn's words, the others nodded as if agreeing.
Of course, mages were generally strange people without much sociality.
But this was different.
Unlike mages who showed off their abilities and lived comfortably relying on nobles, this one was quietly hiding while controlling beasts.
No matter what method he used, it was a disaster for the territory.
“Could it be a shaman, not a mage?”
Arke said with a suspicious expression.
“Shaman?”
At those words, Joseph frowned.