The Shepherd Alone on the Hill is a Genius Wizard-Chapter 81: Don’t Be Surprised (1)

Solif, born to noble parents of a major house.

He awakened his powerful magic at a younger age than others, literally walking a path paved with gold.

Though there were occasional conflicts and frustrations, most things went his way, enough to become a noble youth armed with appropriate self-esteem and arrogance.

However, ten years ago, at forty-eight years old.

Solif first realized something was strange about his life.

The trigger was discovering a scar on a distant relative’s hand at a family event - the same scar as a childhood friend who had died.

"Friend?"

"Yes. One who died because of me."

In his mid-teens, Solif, as adventurous then as now, secretly left his house with a friend he’d grown up with like a brother.

It was to gain magical power on their own, build real-world experience, and see the world.

However, when they went to hunt a Masu threatening a village, young Solif realized the opponent was too strong.

In the moment of crisis, the friend who had run away with him sacrificed himself to save Solif’s life, but the incident left a deep wound in his heart.

After somehow returning to his house, Solif buried his adventurous spirit deep in his heart, vowing never to leave the house recklessly again.

But...

"When I dug up my friend’s grave where family members said they’d found and taken care of him, there was nothing. That relative had been away on a secret special mission that no one knew about from when I was eight until I was fifteen."

Circumstances clearly indicated that relative had disguised himself as a youth to play the role of the sacrificing friend.

They probably cleverly used some magical device suitable for disguise.

Solif was deeply shocked to learn that the major incident that had shaken his young personality was entirely fake.

"When I later looked through the records, the Masu that threatened us had exactly the same characteristics as one that the house had raised and released. The timing of its release matched exactly when I had that experience."

Looking into past events in detail revealed many similar incidents.

A relative of similar age who was always better at magic than Solif, making him jealous and admiring, whom he finally surpassed after desperate training, was sent to the countryside one day and simply disappeared and was forgotten.

The maid he loved passionately but who left citing the burden of status differences had fake records from her registered birthplace to everything else.

Several friends who shared his interest in history, it turned out, had never shown any interest in that field before interacting with him.

"You understand now? What I mean by the entire house creating me. That’s why I escaped. Here, whatever I meet and whatever I choose won’t be manipulated."

After escaping the house like that, he says he’s been searching for his true self while completely changing the personality and way of speaking he’d been trained in.

Finishing his explanation, Solif downed a bottle of alcohol that had appeared from somewhere.

"I couldn’t even dream of drinking like this inside the house."

"Have you thought about who might have done this and why?"

"Don’t know. Given the scale of what was done, the house head must have been involved."

The lack of honorifics revealed Solif’s resentment toward his house head.

As he listened to the story, Turan recalled the tales of surviving Prea god-folk.

If they had survived until now, and if they were still transferring bodies, they would naturally want talented and powerful wizards.

And an heir to a major house would more than satisfy such conditions.

’One of magic’s laws: the more plausible something is, the less magical power it consumes...’

While this law might not apply if vitality sorcery was used, at least by magical principles, it would clearly be more efficient to switch souls with someone of similar personality and interests.

After all, a sudden personality change would be clearly unnatural.

He thought perhaps Meisa might be in a similar situation.

Wasn’t she a talent lacking nothing to serve as a god’s body, from innate ability to status?

Though unlike Solif’s case, she hadn’t mentioned any manipulation from those around her, maybe she simply hadn’t noticed yet.

It might even be related to why she refused meals and came to hate her house...

Lost in thought, Solif suddenly tossed his drinking bottle to Turan.

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"What?"

"Well, the mood’s getting too heavy with all this serious talk. Have a drink at least. You can drink, right?"

Turan looked at the deep brown alcohol for a moment before taking a sip.

A burning sensation flowed down his throat.

"It’s strong."

"It’s alcohol distilled from fermented sugarcane juice. A South Sea specialty."

After saying this, Solif tried to lighten the mood by turning the topic back to his adventure stories.

Turan played along while drinking together, then casually brought up a question.

"Do you think you might return to your house later?"

"Hm? Well, probably not if I can help it. Maybe I’ll go back to overthrow everything once I’m as strong as the house head."

"Never go back. No, if possible, go somewhere far away where the house won’t notice you. Like the far west."

Solif blinked as if wondering what he meant, but it was difficult to give more clues.

To provide evidence for his hypothesis would require revealing too many secrets.

Moreover, what if someday after Solif was caught, his conversation with Turan was revealed to those behind everything through torture, vitality sorcery, or other methods?

Those who learned someone was aware of their existence wouldn’t simply let it slide.

==

After talking all night, Solif headed south, saying they should meet again if they got the chance.

Turan prayed he could stay out of his house’s sight as long as possible.

Though they’d only met for a day to test their skills and drink together, it would still be unpleasant to see someone he knew suffer what amounted to death through body snatching.

At sunrise, after catching and eating a few fish for breakfast, Turan flew northeast with Bize.

Initially he’d planned to take a leisurely boat ride, but changed plans due to what he’d newly learned.

’I should quickly secure fire spirits and then visit House Arabion. Even if confirming the god’s existence is difficult, I should be able to find out if there really are forces manipulating Meisa’s life...’

Judging by Rida’s request, House Labitas likely wasn’t shadowed by the Prea god-folk.

If there were living gods, they would have either already secured White Spirits or not need them.

While approaching Zahar and other major houses was difficult without connections, Arabion had connection points through House Berk and Meisa, making investigation relatively easier.

They should be less suspicious since he’d already established himself as having barrier wizard bloodline using the Mimicker holy relic...

If something unfortunate happened during that process, he could escape crisis by projecting massive firepower using fire spirits.

Though that would require obtaining a large amount of saltpeter this time.

While making plans, Turan suddenly touched his face as a thought occurred to him.

’It would be convenient to have a magical device that changes appearance, I wonder if there’s any way to get one.’

Since the existence of someone who could disguise multiple bloodline abilities was barely known, combining the two could let him play dozens of roles alone.