Translator: Pai_

For Turan, who spent his days herding sheep on the hill, Keorn, a knight of House Arabion, had presented several goals.

Whenever he spoke of his house, he would wear an expression full of pride.

Saying it was a noble house with high pride where everyone from nobles at the top to knights at the bottom considered the protection of humanity their mission.

After long deliberation, Turan accepted the proposal not simply because he wanted to receive a good magic artifact, but because of the admiration that arose from such stories.

Even if it wasn't the main family, being part of a vassal house meant he could at least feel some of that spirit.

Of course, considering that he possessed the Zahar bloodline, which was the enemy of House Arabion, he would have to take some risk... but as long as he didn't reveal his concealment magic directly, there shouldn't be any major problems.

After all, the ability to discern bloodlines, as shown by the librarian, was extremely rare.

The next morning, the party of two people and one horse first headed to the site of the battle.

The purpose was to recover the bodies of the House Berg members who had been killed by the Dark Elves.

Since Ashiz had been unconscious all day yesterday, Turan took on the role of guide.

“This way.”

“How are you even finding your way in a place like this? Everything looks the same to me...”

“If you wander around alone enough, you'll learn quickly. Ah, there are those Dark Elf bastards over there.”

Seeing the two headless Dark Elves, Ashiz bit his lip for a moment before turning his head away abruptly.

It seemed he had considered mutilating the corpses out of anger but decided against it.

Meanwhile, Turan carefully examined the corpses of the bastards he hadn't had time to inspect yesterday.

The first thing that caught his attention was their black leather coats, which were crafted in a similar style. Judging by their craftsmanship, they were items that seemed to be made in a proper workshop and were still in fairly good condition, without much wear and tear.

The second thing was their ears.

He had to guess from the female Dark Elf whose head was completely crushed with only the part above the forehead blown off, but based on their long, split ears, they seemed to be of quite high rank.

From these clues, one fact could be deduced.

“There might be a road to a Dark Elf city nearby.”

“A Dark Elf city? I've never heard of such a thing in this area...”

“They build their cities underground, so it's possible no one knows about them. They dig a few tunnels connecting to the surface, and occasionally necromancers like these come out to hunt humans before vanishing underground without a trace. If people have gone missing in this area, it's likely the work of these bastards.”

“And how do you know such things?”

“I read it in a book.”

Avoiding Ashiz's gaze, which now looked at him as if he were some kind of great sage, Turan turned his eyes away.

He thought to himself that he should inform the lord of the nearby city that there might be a Dark Elf city not far from here.

Afterward, the two followed the footprints left by Tilly and began collecting the remains of the servants one by one.

Overnight, many of the bodies had been defiled by wild animals, making it an unpleasant sight.

Though Ashiz's face contorted with anguish and his eyes welled up with tears, just as they had yesterday, he managed not to cry this time.

As they retrieved keepsakes from the sixteen bodies and buried them, Turan periodically used Detection Magic to ensure no Dark Elves were approaching.

Fortunately, no one came near them while they were creating the graves.

“It seems like we’re about done. I'd love to return all of them to their homeland if I could, but...”

“That would be difficult, wouldn't it?”

As large as the horse was, it would be impossible to transport sixteen corpses.

Moreover, Tilly was already loaded with the luggage the servants had been carrying before, making it all the more impractical.

In the end, Ashiz transformed a large stone into a rectangular shape, engraved the words "To my beloved family" on it, and placed it in front of the graves to serve as a tombstone.

Before long, the previously ordinary stone began to emit a faint light.

'Enchanter...'

Originally, when magical power is imbued into something, it doesn't remain permanent.

Even if Turan strengthened and cast acceleration magic on his slingshot and stones, the effect would gradually dissipate as the magic power infused into them scattered and eventually vanished.

However, there were objects on which such magic was permanently imbued, these were called magic artifacts. Creating them required the Bloodline Ability of an Enchanter.

After the light faded from the tombstone, Ashiz spoke with a somewhat weary expression.

“I didn’t have much time, so I couldn’t do anything impressive. I just cast a simple Concealment magic to keep animals from picking up the scent. It’d be heartbreaking to return later and find the graves dug up...”

On the road northward after leaving the grave, Turan and Ashiz walked in silence, neither opening their mouths to speak.

For Turan, silence had always been familiar, and Ashiz was in no mood for conversation either.

Thus, the two walked with their lips tightly sealed for hours.

As the sun began to set, it was Ashiz who finally broke the silence.

“Thank you, Turan-nim.”

“For what, exactly?”

“For not mocking me.”

Ashiz gave a self-deprecating smile.

“A noble like me crying my eyes out over the sacrifice of subordinates, it must look pathetic.”

“What about it would make it pathetic?”

“That’s what my father taught me. He said that those who die in a righteous battle reside with the gods in the celestial palace, so mourning for them is an act of weakness. He also said that a true noble must know how to move forward, stepping over such sacrifices... But if mourning the death of family is considered weak, then I could never be strong.”

“That’s not weakness. It’s kindness.”

Turan thought of his mother’s death.

The piercing sorrow of it. The feeling of being left all alone, with the only ally in the world gone forever.

He didn’t want to regard such emotions as the product of mere 'weakness'.

Though the conversation ended again, the silence that followed was much lighter than before.

As night fully darkened, Ashiz spoke up once more.

“Now that we’ve decided to travel together, why don’t we speak more casually? We don’t seem to have much of an age difference anyway...”

"What? Ah, well. Sure."

“You’re straightforward. I like that. Looking forward to working together, friend!”

When Turan, taken aback by the sudden suggestion, awkwardly agreed, Ashiz smiled as if they had been lifelong friends and extended his hand.

His demeanor was completely different from the somber one he had shown earlier, as if he were forcing himself to lighten the mood.

‘A friend, huh.’

Come to think of it, this might have been the first time someone had ever called him 'friend'.

Feeling a strange sense of emotion, Turan clasped his hand.

* * *

Not long after they had started speaking more casually, Turan came to realize just how much of a different world this 'friend' of his lived in.

The first moment he felt this was during dinner.

“What’s this...?”

“A cold storage box. I stocked it with various foods during my last trip to the city.”

What Ashiz pulled out from the pack on Tilly’s back was a large metal box, big enough to fit a person inside.

At first glance, it didn’t seem particularly special, aside from its red paint, but when the lid was opened, a cool chill flowed out from inside.

“Is it always cold inside?”

“That’s right! Thanks to it, most foods stay fresh for about a week. If it’s cold, you can just heat it up.”

Ashiz pulled out bread and meat stored inside and, as if to demonstrate, conjured flames to heat the food.

Though he accidentally burned it a bit, apparently, knights usually did the cooking for him, the food was still excellent.

It wasn’t on par with freshly made dishes, but comparing it to things like hardtack or dried meat, which were charred to improve preservation, would be an insult.

Though Turan was used to eating rough meals while camping outdoors, he certainly preferred delicious food when given the chance.

The magic artifacts Ashiz owned weren’t limited to just the cold storage box.

A magic artifact that dispensed water with the press of a button, another that would automatically build a small shelter if you gathered wood, and one that sounded an alarm when someone approached nearby...

There was even a magic artifact that kept the clothes you wore clean. When Turan learned this, he couldn’t hold back and muttered a comment.

“Just giving me that outfit would be enough to repay me for saving your life.”

Magic artifacts were exceedingly rare objects.

Take the case of Orem City, which Turan had visited, only Lug, the head of the house there, owned a few. Even then, they were regarded as heirlooms and rarely taken out.

And yet, this young noble seemed to have an entire load of magic artifacts piled onto his horse’s back…

Hearing Turan’s remark, Ashiz gave an awkward smile and replied.

“These kinds of items aren’t valuable enough to be considered life-saving compensation. When I return to my family, I promise to reward you with something far better. If the elders don’t allow it, I’ll make something myself.”

Hearing that he’d be given something better, Turan silently nodded, though he didn’t hold high expectations.

After all, weren’t people’s attitudes often different when they were desperate compared to when they weren’t?

Even if Ashiz safely returned to his house and later tried to brush it off with a cheap magic artifact, Turan wouldn’t be disappointed.

He would simply discard the friendship he had just gained into the trash, and someday, when he gained enough strength, he would ensure that debt was properly settled.

About a day and a half later, Turan and Ashiz arrived at Maderi, the largest city in the area.

The presence of Tilly, who was clearly a Magical Beast, startled the guards at the entrance. They quickly disappeared, and not long after, a group of knights came rushing out.

“We greet the descendants of the gods!”

Apparently, in this place, nobles were referred to as descendants of the gods.

Invited straight to the mansion at the center of the city, Turan and Ashiz informed the head of the house here about the presence of a Dark Elf city nearby, where people were being hunted and eaten.

“Dark Elves…? Do those things even exist?”

“Yes. Just in case, I brought the head of one. Would you like to see it?”

“No, no, there’s no need for that. Just looking at it would ruin my appetite. Fine, I understand. I’ll have the area patrolled. But more importantly, are you willing to sell the Magical Beast you brought with you?”

“No, Tilly is like family to me…”

Unfortunately, the ruler of this city didn’t seem particularly attentive to the information provided by the two nobles.

Since there was no way to convince him otherwise, the pair stayed for two days, receiving adequate hospitality, before leaving the city and heading north again.

On the fifth day of their journey northward from Maderi, Turan, practicing his skills, struck down an ordinary brown bear that had attacked them using a Lightning spell.

Watching this, Ashiz spoke in disbelief.

“Hey, Turan. Just how many spells do you even know?”

“Hmm?”

“No, seriously. I’ve seen so many kinds already during our time together that I’ve lost count! From animal control to freezing, levitation, liquid manipulation, reinforcement, light emission, binding, instant death, earth transformation, and now lightning… Did you spend your whole life practicing magic? Or is it some kind of Bloodline Ability that lets you learn any spell you want?”

Some of the spells Ashiz mentioned were ones Turan had taught himself, but the rest had been taught to him by Keorn.

From Turan’s perspective, this kind of reaction felt rather foreign.

Wasn’t it normal that, as long as the magic wasn’t Bloodline Magic, it could be cast by simply imagining it? The issue was only how skilled you were.

Of course, when Keorn first mentioned these techniques to him, Turan had struggled quite a bit to grasp them.

Still, saying something like “it just works for me” felt too arrogant, so Turan subtly shifted the topic.

“Didn’t we agree not to pry into each other’s families?”

“Oh, that was just a joke. There’s no way such a ridiculous Bloodline Ability could exist. By the way, how old are you, anyway? You don’t look thirty yet, but… don’t tell me you’re actually eighty or something?”

“Hmm?”

“Huh?”

When Turan showed a puzzled expression at Ashiz's words, Ashiz also seemed to sense something odd and stopped speaking.

“How old are you?”

“This year, I turned forty-three. I think.”

“I’m about a month away from my nineteenth birthday...”

When Ashiz realized that his newly made friend was less than half his age, his expression was truly a sight to behold.

Likewise, Turan was shocked to discover that Ashiz, who appeared only a few years older than him, was the same age as the wrinkled elders of his village.

Come to think of it, wasn’t Keorn in his mid-to-late forties in appearance, yet actually over seventy years old?

It was natural for nobles, who often lived several times longer than commoners, to have appearances that didn’t match their actual age.

It was a fact Turan had forgotten, as he hadn’t had much interaction with nobles before.

“Well, a twenty-one or twenty-two-year difference isn’t that big of a deal for us... No, wait, forget that. Explain that magic skill of yours! How is it even possible? Hearing your age just makes it more confusing. Even if you’d started practicing in your mother’s womb, there wouldn’t have been enough time!”

Because Ashiz persistently questioned him, Turan eventually explained that he had consistently trained in magic from a young age. That’s how he had managed to reach this level of achievement at his age.

It wasn’t exactly a lie.

After all, on Hisaril Hill, the way he spent his time was experimenting with magic in every conceivable way.

Hearing this, Ashiz kicked a stone on the roadside with a frustrated expression.

“Damn it. I should’ve realized when you said you wiped out two necromancers with that much magic power. But still, who would’ve thought there were two geniuses like this in the world?”

“Two?”

At Turan’s question, Ashiz nodded.

“Yeah, not quite at your level. No, perhaps similar? It’s hard to say since, well, that bloodline is what it is. Anyway, there’s another genius around your age. She’s actually my sixth cousin.”

“By any chance, can you ask her to make me a magic artifact?”

If it were an artifact crafted by a genius Enchanter, it would undoubtedly be something extraordinary.

At Turan’s suggestion, Ashiz chuckled and shook his head.

“No, she’s not part of our branch family. She belongs to the main house.”

“The main house? Don’t tell me...”

“Yeah. She’s the princess of House Arabion. She might even become the head of the great house someday.”