Episode 04
The Shepherd
“Then let’s go find your father.”
Lumian sprang to his feet. He was always a man of formidable action. Moreover, thoroughly investigating the rumors within the village could no longer be delayed. Putting it off made it easier to be discovered by his sister, and his sister, Aurore, would not allow him to continue this investigation. In Aurore’s eyes, pursuing transcendent power was an extremely dangerous act.
Don’t I know it’s dangerous? Aurore wouldn’t lie to me about that. But even if what lies ahead is a mountain of swords and a sea of fire, I must go. I can’t let Aurore bear it all alone.
These thoughts flashed through Lumian’s mind as he rose. The solemn, worried expression that surfaced on Aurore’s face whenever she heard the world was growing more dangerous was no lie.
Raymond Craig grew even more bewildered.
“What for?”
“To ask how long that rumor about the warlock has been circulating.”
Lumian glanced sideways at Raymond.
This guy, why can’t he understand? Looks like I need to find an opportunity to measure his intelligence.
Raymond looked at Lumian with a face full of suspicion.
“What’s the point of asking that?”
Hmm, should I make up some reason or just tell him the truth?
Lumian fell into deep thought for a moment.
He couldn’t completely hide the upcoming investigation from his friends. But the reason he wanted to uncover the truth behind the rumor was so unbelievable that even if he talked about it, no villager would believe him. Lumian quickly made a decision.
The smile he often wore when deceiving others bloomed on his face.
“…”
Raymond hastily took two steps back.
“Tell me straight!”
Lumian laughed while adjusting the drape of his dark short coat and the linen shirt underneath.
“It seems to me that rumor about the warlock is worth thinking about.”
“What’s it worth?”
Raymond retorted after a long moment of thought.
“‘A warlock who once lived in the village,’ they said.”
Lumian continued with a serious expression.
“Think about it. When I make up stories to fool people, I don’t mention times, places, or backgrounds they can immediately verify. But that rumor specifically mentions our village. If the claim that a warlock once lived here in Cordu is false, wouldn’t it be too easy for people to find out?”
“But that was a very long time ago.”
Raymond objected.
“I’m talking about the people from way back, when the rumor first started circulating. They could have easily checked whether there was a deceased warlock in the village at that time.”
Lumian smiled.
“The fact this story could be passed down continuously means there’s a good chance it really happened.”
However, this reason failed to convince Raymond.
“But you often use phrases like ‘over a hundred years ago,’ ‘hundreds of years ago,’ ‘a very long time ago’ when you make up stories, to keep listeners from being able to judge their truthfulness.”
“That’s exactly why we need to go ask your father to verify it!”
Lumian spoke with an expression that said, ‘Now do you understand why we’re going to find your father?’
“Well…”
Raymond conceded to that point but still couldn’t shake off a nagging feeling.
As the two left the square and walked deeper into the village, Raymond finally realized where that nagging feeling came from.
“But how are you going to verify whether that rumor is true or false?”
“A warlock, a warlock! We need to find out which house he lived in before, and where he was buried afterwards. Who knows, we might discover his secrets there and gain some marvelous power beyond ordinary people.”
Raymond retorted with an expression that said, ‘Stop lying.’
“How could stories like that, mostly made up to scare children, possibly be real? And if you go chasing a warlock’s power, you could be handed over to the Inquisition!”
In the Republic of Intis, located on the northern continent of this world, the orthodox deities were the Ever-Burning Sun and the God of Steam and Machinery. The two churches, which held almost a monopoly on the populace’s faith, did not permit proselytizing by churches from other nations, such as the Church of the Evernight Goddess, the Church of the Lord of Storms, the Earth Mother Church from the Peneport Kingdom, the God of Knowledge and Wisdom churches from southern nations like Renburg, or the God of War Church from the Peysark Empire.
Among them, the Inquisition of the Church of the Ever-Burning Sun had always been an object of terror for the people. The number of heretics and heathens sent there to suffer cruel treatment was beyond counting.
Lumian laughed out loud.
“Worrying about that already? You just said it yourself—these rumors are mostly made up. The chance of finding anything left behind by a warlock is almost nil. And even if we did discover a warlock’s relic, we don’t have to inherit that forbidden power. We could hand it over to the church for a reward. Hmm, and a warlock’s burial items would probably include quite a few profitable things.”
The church Lumian mentioned was the Church of the Ever-Burning Sun, because there was no Church of Steam and Machinery in Cordu where they lived; that church was usually found in major cities or factory districts.
Seeing Raymond seemed tempted by these words, Lumian clicked his tongue inwardly and added,
“Don’t tell me you really want to become a shepherd?”
The ‘shepherd’ he spoke of was not the idyllic, pastoral shepherd known to city dwellers, who merely took a few sheep out to graze each morning and cared for them.
In the Daller district of the Raston Province where Cordu village was located, being a shepherd was a profession that was inevitably arduous and lonely.
Hired by flock owners, they had to drive dozens or even hundreds of sheep through mountainous regions and plains.
This was battlefield. Every autumn, when the pastures around the Cordu mountain range were exhausted, shepherds would drive their flocks to the relatively warmer plain pastures far outside the mountains. Those seeking pasture often crossed borders into countries like Peneport or Renburg. Then, around early May, they would drive the flocks back to their respective villages for shearing or weaning lambs. Come June, they would ascend to high-altitude pastures, living in shacks and making cheese or grazing the flocks until the weather gradually turned cold.
Living this nomadic life of annual transhumance, shepherds had extremely brief periods to return to the village, and most remained unmarried. It was hard for them to marry or start families. Among this group, the few widows who became shepherds out of necessity for survival were highly welcomed.
Raymond fell silent.
It was a long while later that he hesitantly opened his mouth.
“Hearing you say that… it does sound a bit interesting. Could pass the time when there’s nothing else to do.”
Typically, a child designated by their family to become a shepherd would be sent to some ranch owner’s house between the ages of 15 and 18 to help with work and learn shepherding. Three years later, they would become a formal shepherd and seek a flock owner to hire them.
Raymond, now 17, had already postponed this for over two years for various reasons. But if no significant change occurred in his family’s circumstances, he would have to go learn shepherding next year.
“Let’s go.”
Lumian patted Raymond’s shoulder.
“Where’s your father now? The fields? Or home?”
“No work these days, and Lent is coming up. Probably at home or the tavern.”
Raymond spoke again with a tone tinged with envy.
“Don’t you even know that? Then again, you’re not a farmer, and you have a good sister!”
Lumian ignored Raymond’s lament, thrust his hands into his pockets, and sauntered slowly forward.
As they neared the village’s shabby tavern, a person approached from a side path.
He wore a long, dark brown garment with a hood and a belt around the waist, and he had on new shoes. They looked soft, made of black leather.
“Isn’t that Pierre? Pierre from the Berry family?”
Raymond muttered in a puzzled voice.
Stopping his steps, Lumian looked toward the side path.
“It’s me.”
Pierre Berry waved with a laugh.
He had a thin build, deep-set eye sockets, greasy, curly black hair, and cheeks bushy with what seemed like days of unshaven beard.
Pierre Berry was a shepherd. At the end of March, beginning of April, he should be herding on the plain pastures outside the mountains. How could he be in the village?
Even if the place he’d migrated to this time was in Renburg or northern Peneport and he hadn’t been on the journey long, it would take at least a month to return to the Daller district.
Pierre’s dark blue eyes sparkled with amusement as he spoke, seeming quite pleased.
“Lent is coming up, right? I haven’t been able to participate for years, so I absolutely can’t miss it this year! Don’t worry, I have a fellow shepherd to watch my flock. That’s the good thing about shepherding—no overseer. As long as you find someone to help, you’re free to go wherever.”
Lent was a holiday widely celebrated across Intis. People welcomed the arrival of spring and prayed for a bountiful harvest in various forms.
Though unrelated to the Church of the Ever-Burning Sun or the God of Steam and Machinery, it had become customary and held no meaning of worshiping heathen deities, so the orthodox churches tacitly permitted it.
“Who do you think will be chosen as the Spring Fairy this year?”
Lumian asked with an interested smile.
During Lent, Cordu village chose a pretty young girl to be dressed as the Spring Fairy, part of the celebration ritual.
Pierre laughed along.
“I’d like it to be your sister, Aurore. But Aurore would never agree. Besides, she’s a bit old for it.”
He pointed to the tavern not far away and continued,
“Alright, I need to go to the church to pray. I’ll buy you both a drink later.”
Raymond unconsciously retorted,
“Forget it, what money do you have?”
“Haha, the Lord said, ‘Even if you have only one bean, you must know how to share it with your impoverished brethren.’”
Pierre quoted a proverb circulating among shepherds in the Daller district.
At that moment, Lumian said to Raymond with a laugh,
“Pierre has made money, of course he should buy us drinks!”
His finger was pointing at the new shoes Pierre was wearing.
Pierre Berry looked extremely happy.
“This employer is a very good man. He gave me a few sheep, some wool, cheese, and even leather.”
A shepherd’s remuneration consisted of food, a small amount of money, and items like mutton, cheese, wool, and leather. The specific amounts varied according to the contract made beforehand with the employer.
Well-fitting leather shoes, ideal for shepherds who had to travel long distances, were the most practical and coveted element.
Lumian’s gaze grew heavy as he watched Pierre Berry head toward the village square. A certain degree of suspicion was also present in his eyes.
He muttered to himself,
Returned, spending one to two weeks or even a month on the journey, just to participate in Lent?
Pondering briefly, Lumian withdrew his gaze and headed toward the tavern with Raymond.
The tavern had no name and needed none. The villagers simply called Cordu’s one and only tavern ‘the old tavern.’
Upon entering, Lumian habitually glanced around.
Then, his gaze abruptly stopped in one particular spot.
It was the outsider he had seen last night but who had left earlier.
Another outsider, not part of Raine, Lia, and Valentine’s group.
The female outsider wore a long orange dress. Her curly brown hair was slightly disheveled, and her pale blue eyes were fixed on the pale red drink beside her hand.
Beautiful and seeming languid, she appeared to exist in a space entirely different from this low, dim, and shabby tavern.
