After bringing their drinking session with Tasan to a rather awkward close, Turan and his companions sat facing one another in the lodgings he had provided. First, Turan explained what had happened to Maysa, who had stayed behind and missed their conversation.

"The Head of Baraha?"

"Yes."

"That makes no sense..."

The head of not just any house, but a great house, had left his seat of power to cross the sea to the distant west? Having grown up as the heir of a great house, Maysa understood how they worked, which made it all the harder for her to believe.

But Tasan, who did not even know what Baraha's crest looked like, was unlikely to have invented such a lie out of nowhere. Solif, who had been sitting quietly, muttered in a daze.

"Could it be because of me? To catch me?"

Heading west from this part of the South Sea would bring one to Shiraf Marsh: Ravista's territory, which they had recently left, and one of the few places Baraha knew Solif had been.

"How old did you say the Head of Baraha is now?"

"I think his two hundred and fiftieth birthday celebration was the year I turned fifty..."

"So he isn't even two hundred and sixty. That's certainly too young to be desperate to catch you."

Wizards lived longer than ordinary people because mana kept their bodies and souls from aging. That was why the immensely powerful heads of great houses enjoyed exceptionally long lives even among nobles.

Badal, the Head of Arabion, was over four hundred and still reasonably active, despite being considered decrepit. The recently deceased Head of Ravista had lived past four hundred and fifty. Even far weaker high-ranking nobles such as Lida could comfortably live three hundred to three hundred and fifty years. There was no reason to be so desperate to find Solif that the House Head would come himself.

"Perhaps there's some other reason."

"Could he have a chronic illness?"

A noble's mana-filled body could shrug off all manner of poisons and germs, but that did not make it immune to every disease. Illness could arise without outside causes, from congenital defects or lifestyle habits. Maysa, who had constantly suffered dizziness and chronic fatigue from malnutrition, was a prime example.

Solif hummed thoughtfully at Turan's question, then shook his head.

"Not that I know of... But I suppose they'd have kept it secret even if he did."

"They would have. Nothing good could come of a rumor that the House Head was dying of an illness."

"Then perhaps he's going to Ravista for treatment."

Like Turan and his companions, the Head of Baraha was so powerful that an ordinary Healer's magic would have little effect on him. That explanation made sense too. Then Maysa put forward a far more challenging suggestion.

"Perhaps it's a deception."

"A deception?"

"Just because a ship flies a crest bearing the House Head's symbol doesn't mean he has to be aboard."

"You mean they're pretending he's there?"

Turan had not considered that possibility, and Maysa nodded at his question.

"Yes. Most people can't gauge someone's mana from a distance like you, Turan. Unless they meet him in person, they won't know whether he's actually aboard. And even that could be concealed with a look-alike."

"But why would they do that?"

Any deliberate action needed a reason behind it. Why would someone of such exalted status as a great-house head need to falsify his presence? Solif shook his head, rejecting the very idea.

"The old people in my house are unbelievably stuffy. They take rules and all that very seriously. Even if the house were about to fall, they'd still scream at anyone who broke protocol."

Apparently, Baraha was notorious even among great houses for its tradition of clinging stubbornly to exceptionally elaborate rules. Hard as it was to imagine from the present Solif, he too had hidden his free-spirited nature until he ran away.

"Well, we won't know for sure unless we see for ourselves..."

"For now, we'll need to adjust our plans."

Their original plan had been to travel east, discreetly investigate House Baraha's situation, and find a suitable opportunity to extract Solif's parents. They had confirmed that his father, Godis, who had initially traveled west, had since returned east.

"Your father is still at the main house, then?"

"I can't be sure of that, but he's definitely in the east."

Turan took Godis's hair from his pouch and activated his tracking magic. Far to the northeast, he caught the faint scent of its owner. After putting the hair away again, he voiced an idea that had just occurred to him.

"If the House Head is absent, we could consider a more aggressive approach."

"A suitable approach?"

"We have Baraha's legitimate heir with us. We could seize the entire house and intercept the House Head when he returns."

In mana alone, Turan and his companions surpassed top-ranking nobles, standing somewhere between the heirs and heads of great houses. Their many magic tools and outstanding magical talents made their actual abilities greater still. Together, overthrowing a great house in its head's absence was not impossible—especially with Solif to give them a legitimate basis for demanding surrender.

"Wouldn't that be too dangerous? We still don't know the Head of Baraha's true strength. More importantly, we'd probably make an enemy of Zahar too."

"If Ymir was telling the truth, they're merely partners. Their fates aren't inextricably linked."

"I'm still against it. It's too reckless."

Solif and Maysa argued that his successes had made him overly bold, and that this opportunity did not warrant such a risk.

"You've only just turned twenty. Time is on our side. There's no need to rush."

Solif's youthful looks, typical of a powerful wizard, and his casual manner usually made it easy to forget his age. At times like this, though, Turan could truly feel that he was nearly sixty. He accepted their advice and abandoned the plan to overthrow Baraha in an all-out war.

"But this much should be worth trying."

"What?"

"Infiltrating the House Head's residence and searching the house's secret facilities."

Of all the powers in the world, Living Spirit Sorcery, which dealt with the souls of living beings, belonged exclusively to White Elves. Naturally, the Freyans' ability to live forever by switching bodies was very likely related to it.

Yet Turan had entered the compounds of Arabion and Karmine, two great houses where gods resided, without detecting any other races. Considering that his Holy Relic's senses reached at least several hundred meters, depending on his concentration, that should have been impossible.

That meant they either kept the White Elves somewhere outside their capitals or confined them by some special means. Turan considered the latter more likely. Normally, the House Head's presence would make a thorough investigation impossible, but with him absent... Perhaps Turan could finally uncover that secret.

* * *

The next day, Turan and his companions left the Red Whale Pirates' base and headed east. Naturally, they destroyed their boat at a suitable location, then took to the air on the swing pulled by Vije.

During the flight, Maysa gazed at the white foam below and murmured,

"Come to think of it, it's a shame we can't do that."

"What?"

"The Waverider ritual."

Hunting leviathans was difficult when they did not know what those creatures were, but traveling on natural waves was perfectly achievable with enough time. They simply had no time for it now, when they hoped to infiltrate Baraha's seat while its House Head was away.

As one of the world's only two seas, the South Sea was vast. Even Vije, who could cross most great houses' territories in a day or two, could not easily cross it without rest. As a result, it took them a full three days to land on an eastern shore.

"Finally here..."

"All that flying has left me stiff."

"You weren't the one flapping your wings. Are you all right, Vije?"

At Maysa's question, Vije chirped and fluttered her wings as if to say she was fine, then leaned against Turan's side. They had paced the flight with her condition in mind, so she was not completely exhausted as she had been before.

"So, where are we?"

"We came east across the South Sea... Unless something unusual happened, this should be the grasslands. We need to head northeast to reach the main house."

Bleak grasslands stretched southeast of the Enril Desert. Like the western wilderness and forest region, they had no great house ruling over them. As a result, the neighboring great houses of Zahar and Baraha exerted a strong influence here.

"Grasslands... Are they very different from the Dakayn Plains?"

"Very. For one thing, the soil's poor and there's little rain. Hardly anyone farms here."

Maysa, who came from the Dakayn Plains, the world's most productive grain-growing land, gaped as if she could not even imagine it.

They truly understood Solif's words after walking northeast for three or four hours while giving Vije a rest. Despite their relatively leisurely pace, they covered well over eighty kilometers without seeing a trace of proper farmland, only the occasional riders and tents.

"The mostly nomadic population makes it rather like the Enril Desert. Though there are plenty of cities around the oases there."

"There are hardly any cities in these grasslands. Naturally, there aren't many noble houses either... Still, plenty of powerful horse monsters emerge here, so it's not as though the region has no specialties."

True to his words, Turan sensed several awakened monsters among the wild horses and wolf packs they occasionally passed. A few even possessed noble-caliber mana. Young scions of great houses hungry for mana, or nobles of the Tamer bloodline, could probably find a visit quite rewarding. Of course, Turan and his companions were long past the point where hunting such small fry would be worthwhile.

"Some of them occasionally ride into Baraha to raid us. A real nuisance. Sometimes even noble bandits show up."

"Noble bandits? Not knights?"

Seeing Turan and Maysa's expressions of disbelief, Solif spoke with a swagger.

"These people produce so little that they take pride in stealing from others. I've killed a few robber nobles who came up from here myself."

"At that point, wouldn't it be better to wipe them all out?"

"These grasslands aren't as big as the Enril Desert, but they're still vast. Hunting them all down would be too much trouble, so we only kill the ones who come north. They're practically monsters in human form."

His tone was steeped in contempt for the grassland people, probably learned from his house.

After walking for about half a day while listening to Solif's lessons on the grasslands, they slept for the night, then boarded Vije's swing again and headed northeast. Turan was thinking that the endless expanse of grass looked like a green sea when he turned toward a presence approaching from behind.

"... A black eagle?"

"Vije?"

"No, another one."

Solif turned too and gave a startled exclamation. A gigantic black eagle was approaching from behind, far larger than a person and more than ten times Vije's size.

Its mana felt roughly equivalent to a middle- to upper-middle-tier noble's. Naturally, that alone made it extraordinarily powerful among wild monsters, enough to reign as a terror in a region like this, with no great house.

"What's its problem? Why is it following us?"

"It looks angry. Perhaps this is its territory."

The black eagle's shriek was much deeper and heavier than Vije's, no doubt because of its larger natural build. Apparently recognizing the challenge in it, Vije suddenly wheeled around and glanced at Turan. Through their soul bond, he understood what she wanted.

"Let's get off."

"Huh?"

Ignoring Solif's question, Turan grabbed him and leaped off the swing, activating his flight magic. Once Maysa was off as well, Vije snapped the cords securing the swing and let out a shriek of her own.

The moment the other black eagle gave her a mocking look at that little voice—

SQUAWK.

With that bizarre cry, the giant eagle's body crumpled. Vije had charged with all her strength, accelerating further with wind magic, and pierced it squarely through the breastbone.

The wild black eagle might have been larger, but Vije possessed far more mana and could even use wind magic through Turan. The gulf in their fighting strength was immense—so great that it had not even properly registered her charge.

"What a waste."

"What is?"

"It might have been useful if we'd tamed it."

Solif could not sense another creature's mana as Turan could, but its size and speed gave him some idea. Hearing the regret in his voice, Turan replied,

"That would be difficult. Creatures that powerful almost never submit to humans. A soul bond isn't a solution to everything, either."

Even if one subdued a monster by force, it was difficult to trust and make use of it unless it had truly submitted. Hadn't Vije herself thrown off a former soul-bound master and fled, only to be captured again? Tamer houses did not build enormous menageries and spend years confining and taming monsters out of stupidity.

"If you want to tame one, let's find something small and obedient. Perhaps there's one out there that suits you, like Vije suits me."

While he consoled Solif, Vije sent a lightning bolt into the falling black eagle, already sporting a hole in its chest, to make certain it was dead. Then she returned to Turan. Meeting her triumphant gaze, he said quietly,

"Let's wash you first. We'll go down there and take care of the mana too."

Vije, who had expected praise, gave him a sulky look.

* * *

A day and a half later, Turan and his companions left the grasslands and entered a new domain. Lakes as vast as seas and the rivers connecting them spread out before them, as if mocking the barren grasslands. This was the territory of the great house of Baraha, commonly known as the Land of Five Lakes.

"It's been a while, hasn't it?"

"It has. I suppose it's good to be back."

Mixed emotions crossed Solif's face as he looked at his homeland for the first time in so long. Turan imagined he would wear much the same expression if he returned to Hisaril Hill.

In any case, it was time to start worrying about being seen. They landed beside a lake fairly close to a city and immediately began preparing to infiltrate it.

First, Solif put on and activated the mask bearing the face of a pirate they had captured and killed during their voyage. He became a boy who looked a little younger than Turan. They had chosen that face specifically because its hair was a similar gray, only slightly darker than Turan's.

Maysa, meanwhile, used the magic tool she had made herself to change her hair and eye color. Once she had turned her reddish-brown hair and blue eyes gray like Turan's and stood beside him, they looked like siblings.

"Come to think of it, you two are distant relatives, aren't you? You both have Arabion blood."

"If you call us relatives, you'd have thousands of relatives in these grasslands too."

As Maysa said, the blood relationship between her and Turan was negligible. A brief investigation during his stay with House Berg had revealed that it had been at least five generations since an ancestor on his mother's side had retained the Arabion bloodline.

Her voice was rather too sharp for a simple statement of fact, however, and Solif grinned teasingly.

"Of course. You'd prefer not to be related."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing."

While the two chatted, Turan put on the magic tool that altered his apparent age and fed mana into it, setting it to his early fifties. A moment later, sensing that the transformation was complete, he turned to them.

"Did it work? How do I look?"

His voice sounded rougher than before, like that of a man several decades older. Maysa nodded at his transformed appearance.

"It worked."

"I've seen it before, but getting older really does change the impression you give. Even people who knew you would have a hard time recognizing you."

Turan started to make a water mirror, then remembered that the grasslands had little moisture and took out his hand mirror instead. Looking at his reflection, he murmured,

"It's surprising how little I resemble Talis."

Perhaps it was the sharp eyes and prominent nose characteristic of Zahar. Normally, Turan resembled Talis so closely that people who knew the man well suspected a blood relationship the moment they saw him.

But aging himself with the magic tool diminished that resemblance considerably. His mother's features became a little more pronounced, lending his face a gentler, more lively air.

Solif studied him curiously.

"That doesn't weaken your body too, does it?"

"It only changes how I look. My height and weight don't change at all."

If it could truly alter his physical age, it would be an improvement on Ravista's Holy Relic of eternal life. Though he now looked to be in his fifties, Turan's physical abilities had not diminished in the slightest. Of course, that also meant he could not take the form of a child who had yet to grow.

Their disguises complete, the three stood side by side, inspecting one another and nodding. Turan looked to be in his early to mid-fifties, Maysa in her early twenties, and Solif in his late teens.

With all three sporting shades of gray hair, they looked like close relatives despite their dissimilar features. After all, it was hardly unheard of for family members to look nothing alike.

"I wish this fellow's eyes had been gray too."

"Then there wouldn't be enough trace of your mother's side. Let's call it natural variation."

Responding lightly to Solif's grumbling, Turan stepped forward and pointed toward the city in the distance. From this point on, they were an ordinary family traveling through Baraha's lands.