Chapter 159
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 159
“Greetings, Lord of Parsha. I am the commander of this unit—”
Turan stood before the Carmine mages, who remained lined up with their weapons lowered. He silently observed the middle-aged woman bowing at the front.
He recalled seeing her before, back when he was disguised as Onil. She was one of Carmine’s high-ranking nobles, and since she hadn't been present at the secret meeting with Talis, he surmised she wasn't a God’s Vessel.
Anxiety was etched clearly onto her face and the faces of the mages behind her. It was only natural. Not only were they surrounded by Parsha’s mages, but the Head of the House himself stood right before them.
“I have no interest in who you are. Just answer the question I asked a moment ago. What is a Carmine army doing in a place like this?”
“I apologize, but I am afraid I cannot speak on that matter. It is strictly an internal affair of Carmine…”
The woman groaned, her words cut short by a crushing weight that seemed to press down on her entire body. Turan hadn't used any specific trick; he had simply exerted pressure through his mana.
Now, Turan’s power was such that a mere projection of mana—which should normally be harmless—could inflict psychological pain bordering on suffocation to those of knight-level strength. It was the instinctive terror of an ant suddenly realizing the gargantuan scale of the whale looming over it; they were seized by dread the moment they sensed a presence on a completely different dimension from their own.
“If it were truly just an internal Carmine matter as you say, I wouldn't need to care. But sending an army to my family’s territory is a different story. This is my final warning. Speak. What is going on?”
The pressure was enough to make a lesser person wet themselves, yet surprisingly, the Carmine commander managed to endure Turan’s momentum, keeping her back straight.
“You refuse to speak?”
“According to the Ebel Pact, which established Carmine’s borders twelve hundred years ago… as long as we do not descend from the mountains, this area cannot be interpreted as Parsha’s territory. We have only come here to carry out a mission according to orders from the main house…”
Turan watched the woman struggle to reply, then finally ceased the projection of his mana. Because everyone remained silent, the only sound on the quiet mountainside was the sound of ragged breathing.
In the meantime, Turan discreetly opened the jewelry box and spoke to the Librarian.
[Old man, a question. What is the Ebel Pact?]
[What is this nonsense, calling me so suddenly? It is a boundary agreement signed 1,231 years ago between three powers: Carmine, Arabion, and the alliance of families in the Gray Zone.]
According to the Librarian, they had set their respective boundaries at the mid-slope of the northern mountain range in the Gray Zone. Strictly speaking, the area near the mountain peaks was closer to a neutral zone.
Having obtained the information, Turan clicked his tongue and nodded.
“I see. You aren't wrong.”
Only then did Turan realize the opponent had positioned themselves here with this specific situation in mind. Common sense dictated that they couldn't have known this land was the border between Carmine and the Gray Zone—making it a place where it was customarily difficult to hold someone accountable—without studying the history beforehand.
It was an agreement so old that even Turan, who enjoyed reading, had to ask the Librarian about it. The fact that they hadn't attacked the Parsha nobles who came to scout, but had only defended with a barrier, was likely to maintain a justification. They could claim they were simply doing their job in a neutral zone when the other side attacked.
‘So, why did they do this?’
Had they really come to claim some hidden treasure on the mountain peak? No, if that were the case, Turan would have found it long ago. He had roamed these mountains more than once or twice, and anything significant would have likely been caught by the senses of his Mimic Relic.
‘Their goal was to draw me out here… Could it be?’
What came to Turan’s mind was the war between Baraha and Ruban happening to the east. If he hadn't struck first and forced the Ruban army to retreat, this would have been exactly when they arrived at Helio. If a Carmine army had been loitering north of the Gray Zone during that time, the Parsha family would naturally have found it difficult to provide proper support.
‘Come to think of it, the request to join the Great Sea Serpent hunt a while ago might have been in a similar vein.’
He had refused because he feared a stab in the back, but in hindsight, the goal might have been to lure him away. If Turan and the elites of the Parsha family had left the main house to hunt the Great Sea Serpent, supporting Baraha would have been impossible.
Turan looked at the expressionless leader of the Carmine army and the mages behind her, then asked casually.
“By any chance, was this matter discussed with Ruban beforehand?”
“I am not sure what you mean.”
At Turan’s question, neither the woman leading the army nor the other Carmine nobles showed any particular sign of guilt. He couldn't sense the dizzying despair typical of someone caught in a lie from their scent, either.
‘Well, even if that were the case, they wouldn't have told these small fry who aren't even Vessels.’
Testing them yielded no results, but Turan felt his hypothesis was quite plausible. The reason they carried out the operation even though the Ruban army had already retreated was likely because they couldn't communicate in real-time. Since the sea routes were blocked, they would have to use flying magical beasts or something similar to communicate. Carmine and Ruban were far enough apart that even a top-tier beast like Bije would have to fly for several days, so it was highly possible that news of the defeat hadn't reached them yet.
Having organized his thoughts, Turan made a declaration to the Carmine army.
“Considering that you did not cross the border, I will not impose any further punishment for now.”
Several Carmine mages let out sighs of relief at his words. Of course, for Turan to summarily execute or take the Carmine army prisoner would have incurred a political burden even for him. They had, after all, simply been stationed in a neutral zone on the border of the two families, keeping their barrier up.
But since when did people act so rationally? Power players who could do more than others were often capricious, and the Head of a Great Family was a power player among power players. It meant it wouldn't be strange for him to act however he pleased.
“However, I cannot tolerate an army of this scale staying right next to my family’s territory. Vacate the mountains immediately upon being released.”
“I apologize, but that is not a matter I can decide with my authority.”
The Parsha mages, and even the Carmine mages, widened their eyes at their leader’s stubborn attitude. The Head of a Great Family had personally stepped forward and told them to get lost, and she dared to talk back?
Until a moment ago, it could be overlooked as her simply carrying out the family’s orders, but this was different. Even if an enraged Turan struck her dead on the spot, people would say she deserved it.
However, instead of getting angry at her attitude, Turan spoke calmly.
“I see. So you’re saying that while your family’s capital has fallen and the people you should be protecting are suffering, you cannot stop picking fights with other families for no reason.”
A crack momentarily appeared on the woman’s iron-mask-like face at his sarcastic remark. Anger, and shame.
‘As I thought, staying here doesn't have any real meaning. Their goal is just to provoke the Parsha family and prevent us from lending strength to Baraha.’
With that, Turan was able to fully confirm the opponent’s objective.
Not long after, the Carmine army packed up their camp and began to head north, back to where they had come from. It was the result of the subordinates breaking the will of their leader, who had stubbornly insisted they must hold the position as ordered.
At that point, Turan sent Meisa back to Kalamaf first, then patrolled further east while riding Bije. As a result, he surprisingly discovered two more units stationed near the mountain peaks.
Fortunately, those two were not as resolute as the leader of the first army. Not only was he able to make them retreat with light threats, but he even heard from one of them that they had been instructed to ‘stall for as much time as possible here.’
As the sunset began to drape across the sky, Turan spoke to those riding behind him as they returned to Kalamaf on Bije.
“I’ve gone and wasted a day for busy people. If I’d known it would be this anticlimactic, I would have come alone.”
“Not at all, My Lord! On the contrary, we should have handled something of this level ourselves. We only feel sorry for making you step forth…”
Moson Meberne, the son of the Lord of Bigen and the representative of the mages dispatched to Parsha, spoke with an apologetic expression.
As he said, this wasn't normally something the Head of a Great Family would personally handle. While those heavy-hitters stayed holed up in their main houses, mid-level nobles would go back and forth a few times to talk, send news to their respective houses, and wait for replies. Resolving a single dispute this way could take months.
The gods ruling Carmine had likely done this hoping Turan would waste time in such a manner. It was just that he was unnecessarily proactive and had handled it simply by stepping in himself.
*
After returning to Kalamaf, Turan held a meeting with the leadership to explain the progress of the incident. Once they heard his deduction, everyone, without exception, let out low groans.
“Hmm, Carmine and Ruban…”
“We are cooperating with Baraha, so it’s not strange for them to join hands, but I can’t fathom what the catalyst was. There’s no friendship between the families, and they aren't physically close, either.”
As Asiz said, it was difficult to guess why Carmine would suddenly cooperate with Ruban to check the Parsha family. Even by general standards, the two families weren't particularly close, and there had been no word of any communication between the two groups that would suggest they were influenced by the gods.
Just in case, he asked Resion and the other half-elves about it, but no meaningful answer came back.
[The leader of the Ruban half-elves… the drug-user? If you ask what kind of person he is, I would have to say he is a man who doesn't care about the means or methods. It would be hard to say he was that close to us, either.]
When the Parsha-Lavitas Allied Forces attacked, Resion had called in Ruban’s reinforcements, but that didn't mean the two groups were emotionally close. At the time, the Ruban family had demanded a payment that even a Great Family would find agonizingly expensive in exchange for sending reinforcements.
No, even if the two half-elf groups were close, they would have needed a price for outward appearances. After all, the number of Vessels ruling a Great Family was small compared to the total population, so no matter how high-ranking they were, they couldn't entirely ignore the opinions of those below them.
[Still, aren't you the few White Elves left in this world?]
[Half of us are. Our state is so ambiguous that it is hard to put into words… When we see others in the same state, half of us feels the poignancy of being compatriots, but the other half feels hatred. Verbalizing emotions is truly difficult. I can only express it this way.]
According to his further rambling explanation, when half-elves saw another of their kind, they felt unpleasantness from the divine perspective seeing the elven part, and conversely, unpleasantness from the elven perspective seeing the divine part. It was a sentiment Turan found impossible to imagine.
“Anyway, the important thing is that Carmine has joined forces with Ruban and started messing with us. We’ll have to expand our patrol area to the entire northern mountain range from now on.”
“Until now, we only looked at the northwestern side, right?”
“Yeah. Because we had to check the western forest side too.”
Meisa nodded at Turan’s words. Originally, she had made it her daily routine to scout from the border of the western forest to the western part of the northern mountains. This was to guard against the Arabion army that might invade someday.
However, this Carmine intrusion occurred slightly to the east of the area she searched, in the middle and eastern parts of the northern mountains. To scout this far, she would have to spend almost half the day just flying.
“No matter how I think about it, that’s too much of a waste of time. It would be better to extend the signal fires into the mountains…”
“Signal fires are difficult even now. Because of visibility issues, we usually have to station at least one knight at each, and we don't have that much surplus magical power or manpower.”
It was Asiz who stepped in to discourage Turan’s idea. As he said, the Parsha family was actively accepting wandering nobles and knights to grow their strength, but they still lacked the internal depth compared to other Great Families. To set up and guard signal fires enough to scout the entire northern mountain range, they would need at least a hundred and several dozen knights. If they didn't want to leave those knights stuck in the mountains for their entire lives, they would need twice that number to allow for rotations.
“Hmm, it’s difficult.”
“Even ordinary mage families are always riddled with all sorts of problems. It would be strange if managing a Great Family were easy.”
At least the Parsha family was much better off than other Great Families, which were riddled with all sorts of structural flaws and absurdities over long years. This was thanks to the members being young and not thinking in outdated ways, as well as the Head, Turan, being proactive and intervening in various events to strike exactly where strength was needed.
After that, Parsha’s leadership discussed for a long while how this incident would play out in the long term and how they should respond, before finally ending the meeting.
“In the end, we couldn't come up with a clear solution.”
“We’ll have to think about it gradually. Perhaps there simply isn't a solution at all.”
In this world, there were problems that one knew about but could do nothing to solve. The Parsha family was solving many of them through various methods, but even for them, some things were just impossible.
Returning to his quarters late at night, Turan had a simple dinner prepared with Meisa. Soup made with butter and flour, lightly seasoned lamb, and a few kinds of fresh vegetables sprinkled with salt.
To the poor, it would seem like an unparalleled luxury, but for the Head of a Great Family and the one considered his companion, it was a rather modest menu. Both Turan and Meisa enjoyed good food, but they had prepared it simply because they didn't want to wake the already sleeping chef.
“It’s delicious.”
“Don't you think my cooking skills have improved a bit compared to the old days?”
“Not enough to brag about it yet.”
Turan teased the boasting Meisa and laughed as he sliced the lamb and put it in his mouth. Meisa had been honing her cooking skills whenever she had time after curing her eating disorder while traveling together, but she was still inexperienced compared to Turan, who had spent years preparing various meals for himself using meager ingredients.
“I’m continuing to practice and you aren't, so the gap will close soon. When that happens… ugh.”
Their pleasant chatter was short-lived. Meisa suddenly put down her utensils and covered her mouth with her hand. Seeing the familiar sight, Turan narrowed his eyes and asked.
“Are you okay? Should we go out and rest for a bit?”
Since leaving Arabion, Meisa had treated her eating disorder by increasing her self-esteem through helping the helpless. This hadn't changed even after the Parsha family was established. Although she had less free time than before, she continued her service by patrolling and helping the suffering people in and around Kalamaf whenever she could.
But for the symptoms to recur suddenly at this point?
At Turan’s suggestion, Meisa took several deep breaths and shook her head.
“No, I don't think I need to do that. It’s just… the lamb suddenly smells too strong. I must have cooked it wrong.”
Back when she suffered from the eating disorder, what tormented Meisa were the phantoms of her dead mother and younger brother. When she heard them questioning how she dared to eat anything after letting them die, an unbearable nausea would surge within her.
However, the revulsion she felt this time was completely different. The grilled lamb she usually ate with gusto had simply become unbearably repulsive.
Was it because her palate had become more refined after eating luxurious food?
If not that, then could it be…?