The Shepherd Alone on the Hill is a Genius Wizard-Chapter 98: A Matching Item Somewhere (2)

After all, Meisa’s mother was the cousin sister of Asiz’s mother, House Berk’s head Midela.

After a moment of silence, Asiz spoke in a firm voice unlike before:

"Alright, let’s do it. Think of it as putting on one grand play. I should at least be good enough for a supporting role."

Turan burst out laughing at these words befitting a theater enthusiast.

After lightening the mood with jokes, they dispelled the sealed room magic and called a servant to request tea.

Unlike gulping it down earlier, Asiz elegantly sipped his tea and asked:

"So what help do you need from me?"

"I want to heal this friend’s arm, do you know any healers? They don’t need to be particularly skilled as long as they can keep quiet."

"Ah, because this person’s... abilities can’t be revealed?"

"That’s right."

Originally, the stronger the magical creature the more power required for treatment, so healers couldn’t help but recognize how powerful the being they were treating was.

And Turan didn’t want it revealed that Solif was a top-tier noble.

Not only would rumors of a silver-haired powerful noble be unwelcome, but most importantly, he could be a hidden card if unexpected situations arose while investigating within Arabion.

This was a strategic judgment separate from his original paranoia.

"Hmm, there is one person. But they wander around a lot so I’m not sure if we can call them right away."

"Are they on pilgrimage?"

"No, they have a hobby of treating commoners."

"Oh."

Just from that explanation, Turan gave high marks to this unknown healer.

According to the following explanation, her name was Lua Manag, a noble of House Manag, one of Arabion’s vassals.

She was born with noble-level magic power among knights and was adopted as a daughter.

"Ah, so?"

"That’s right."

Though they say magic power is most important in the noble world, there were still gaps based on birth status.

Those born between noble couples like Asiz and Solif were considered most precious, those with one parent (usually the mother) as a concubine were middle, and those who awakened through atavism born between knights or commoners were considered lowest.

Unless they were exceptionally talented, they couldn’t help but be outcasts even among nobles.

"Plus everyone dislikes how eccentric she is, going around treating commoners. Though I don’t care about such things."

Indeed, these were words befitting the embodiment of friendliness who got along well with even the house knights and servants.

Anyway, according to the story, she was exactly the talent Turan wanted.

If she wasn’t close with any nobles besides Asiz, she naturally wouldn’t spread rumors.

"But it might take a few months if we’re unlucky."

"Just contact her first. If it seems like it’ll take too long we can go find her ourselves. This one is the fastest in the world."

As Turan said this while petting her head, Bize made an adorably cute sound unfitting for her size.

==

The separate building of House Berk where he was staying after a long time still felt like another world.

Turan bathed and changed clothes in a room overflowing with all sorts of helpful magic devices, then called Asiz and Solif to enjoy a feast in the building’s dining room.

Since he hadn’t had the chance to enjoy such luxurious meals since leaving Komad City where he bought Bize, his mood naturally brightened having his palate pampered after several months.

Solif, who had lived his whole life as heir to a great house, seemed to feel similarly.

"Yeah, damn house but this was nice. Ah, I do miss it a bit..."

"Want to go back?"

"Just joking. I think I prefer the food here."

After comforting their tired bodies and minds to some extent, Turan first wrote a letter to Meisa.

It said that he was staying at House Berk and wanted to meet, asking her to either come here or invite him.

Since someone would surely look at it first, he didn’t mention anything difficult to tell others.

’I hope Meisa comes here if possible.’

He was still somewhat reluctant to enter Arabion’s main house.

That’s why even when he went to see the departure ceremony before, he had only gone to the outskirts of the city and left.

Of course, going inside had its own advantages too.

There would be information that could only be discovered by seeing with one’s own eyes.

After sending the letter, he secretly went to Asiz’s room to bring out a task he had been putting off.

That was analyzing the magic devices obtained during his recent travels.

"No way, just how many are there?"

"Quite a few, right?"

"This is way beyond quite a few..."

The number of magic devices Turan laid out totaled fifteen.

While this might be normal for House Berk as an artificer house or great houses with such vassals, it would require pulling up the family’s foundations for ordinary nobles.

Letting out a hollow laugh, Asiz began examining them one by one, placing his hand on each magic device.

First he investigated the ring and earrings obtained in the western wilderness.

As expected, since they were items possessed by low-level nobles, they weren’t particularly impressive.

Functions like brightening night vision and slightly increasing fire resistance when worn.

While the earrings might be somewhat helpful, the ring was completely useless so it would be better to give it to Solif.

Next he examined the Baraha nobles’ magic devices.

Most had functions for defense, support, or imitating bloodline magic, and true to being great house magic devices, their performance was good.

Of course, though he had somewhat figured out their functions through actual combat, confirming exact performance and side effects was essential when using magic devices.

This wasn’t easy without having an artificer among one’s acquaintances, like now.

While considering what to use and what to distribute while memorizing each magic device’s functions one by one, Asiz finally placed his hand on the transformation mask.

Probably the item that the Baraha noble had used to deceive Solif and disguise as a pirate.

His face suddenly frowned while examining its performance with his eyes closed and magic power injected.

"Hmm..."

"What? Is there something strange?"

This was a reaction he hadn’t shown even once while examining the other magic devices earlier.

When Turan asked, Asiz opened his eyes and answered:

"Well the function itself is useful, though a bit messy. If you put it on a corpse’s face and inject magic power it stores the face, and if you put it on a living person’s face and activate it, it changes to the stored face. The duration lasts until you take off the mask and it continuously consumes magic power."

"How much consumption?"

"Knights would be limited to a few hours, while noble-level wizards could barely use it continuously since their recovery is higher. Though they wouldn’t be able to recover much after using magic."

Magic power recovery speed is proportional to total capacity.

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According to that explanation, a high-level wizard like Turan could wear it semi-permanently with just a slight slowdown in magic power recovery.

Since he could just take off the mask when needing to fight at full power, this was a manageable side effect.

"That’s good."

"Right. With this level of functionality, it could be considered a top-tier magic device. However, it seems there’s a matching item somewhere. It feels like you need to use them together to access the real function."