Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 0

He possessed genius-level talent, yet he couldn’t even run without medication.

The game character he created as his third alt.

He ended up entering that world.

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Prologue

“Okay, so what kind of character should I make this time…”

He ruffled his messy hair and sat down in front of the computer.

After a few taps on the keyboard, a familiar interface appeared on the screen.

He entered his ID and password, and the phrase ‘WORLD ver.3.0’ appeared and then disappeared, revealing two characters on the screen.

A young man chopping a thick log and dozing off, and a sharpshooter holding a bright blue rifle.

Near the young man, a slightly worn gauntlet lay on the ground, and a magic circle slowly rotated above the muzzle of the rifle held by the sharpshooter.

He looked at the young man and the sharpshooter, put down the mouse, and pondered for a moment.

The two figures on the monitor were characters from a game he had created and nurtured himself.

The game, called WORLD, was famous for being an open-world single-player game, but it also constantly changed its world and timeline through continuous updates.

He, too, had been creating and leveling up new characters every time an update was released while playing the game.

He had enjoyed the game enough in versions 1.0 and 2.0, so he needed a new character for 3.0.

After a moment of contemplation, he quickly grabbed the mouse and clicked the character creation button.

In fact, he had already decided what kind of character he would create.

He planned to make his third character a magic-specialized one.

He wanted to fully experience the thrill of magic that he had felt when playing the magic marksman, his second character.

The dazzling magic circles, powerful force, and versatility that were unique to magic in WORLD were definitely very attractive advantages in the vast open world.

So much so that he, who had been leveling up a magic marksman, became so addicted to magic that he invested too much in magic abilities, eventually turning into a so-called ‘trash character’ [a character with poor stats due to over-specialization].

He learned through the game that versatility and incompetence were only a hair’s breadth apart, so this time he planned to level up a character that was completely dedicated to magic.

If he focused the initial character’s talents on magic in the selection window, at least he wouldn’t end up with an ambiguous character.

“Shall we begin?”

Having made his decision, he quickly determined the character’s appearance and age, and moved to the window for distributing talents, pouring all the given potential into magic-related categories.

“Magic power capacity, control ability, calculation ability… and I can’t forget mana sensitivity, or affinity.”

After allocating the initial points into magic-related abilities, the completed character was a sight to behold.

With a maximum score of 30, the magic-related stats hovered around 25-27, while the physical abilities barely reached 3 or 4, creating a walking corpse.

It might not have been a delusion that the character’s complexion looked pale on the screen, wearing clothes similar to a patient’s gown.

However, even with this, he looked at the monitor with a dissatisfied expression for a long time before grabbing the mouse again.

He scrolled down the stat window and moved the cursor to the trait section, listing the traits that could be selected by clicking the arrow.

The trait section was designed to grant the character innate constitutions, talents, or special abilities, but adding these traits also required a considerable amount of stats.

Therefore, it was common to simply add one or two useful traits and move on, but he didn’t even look at the other traits and started scrolling down the list.

After scrolling down for a while, useful traits such as ‘Innate Divine Body’ and ‘Blue Blood’ disappeared, and traits written in bright red letters appeared.

Various bad traits that seemed to penalize the character, such as chronic headaches, mana depletion, and holy power repulsion.

Those who didn’t know might easily mistake it for a useless feature that only existed for concept play, but he, who had played this game twice, knew the real reason.

With a serious expression, he began to select and add various unhelpful traits to the character.

“Scarecrow, insomnia, mana addict, too much is as bad as too little, and a talented person dies young… lifespan doesn’t matter.”

It was an incomprehensible act of adding disadvantages to the character he would directly play, but surprisingly, every time he added a trait written in bright red letters to the character, the remaining distribution points, which he thought he had completely used up, began to increase little by little.

The ‘Karma System,’ which was activated only when creating a character in WORLD, additionally paid the price for the penalties imposed on the character.

Thanks to this Karma System, players enjoying WORLD could create characters more freely, beyond the limitations of simple stats and traits.

By adding a few penalties, they could additionally add talents or traits to the character that were not allowed in terms of stats.

Until now, he had never actively utilized this Karma System, but this time, as he was determined to create a character, he planned to push the character’s concept to the limit as much as possible.

After filling all the magic-related stats to the maximum of 30 points with the remaining stats obtained as a price for the penalties he had burdened the character with, he finally pressed the creation complete button with a satisfied expression.

He was a patient with an innate weak constitution, insomnia, addiction symptoms when using mana for a long time, a halved lifespan due to excessive talent, and a body that creaked every time he moved, but what did it matter?

It was just a game character. There was no more perfect character to enjoy magic than this.

“This will be fun.”

With this much talent, he would be able to achieve better-than-expected performance no matter what magic he learned.

Just thinking about what magic to learn was already incredibly enjoyable.

After randomly setting the character’s name and background and finishing the editing, a black loading screen filled the monitor.

“………”

While waiting for the loading to finish, his eyes, which had been idly wandering, suddenly turned to the bottom of the screen.

The game tip that appeared in the corner of the loading screen to alleviate the gamer’s boredom was particularly bothersome.

[The first is coincidence. The second is necessity. The third is destiny.]

[All three updates were recorded for this moment.]

[Accept your destiny.]

“What is this…”

The moment he muttered to himself at the rather forceful tone of the tip, the black light flashed and swallowed everything in the room whole.

After consuming all traces of a person’s life without leaving a single one, it burped contentedly and disappeared.

As if nothing had ever happened, thick dust had piled up in the room.

#

“Lenok, wake up!”

Even with the rough shout that shook his eardrums, he rubbed his eyes, which wouldn’t open, and tossed and turned.

It was an unconscious action, but the voice didn’t speak twice.

Thwack!

With a strong impact that felt like his jaw would fall off, he fell off the bed and opened his eyes wide.

A burly, hairy giant with a murderous aura flowing from his face was looking down at him with bloodshot eyes.

The giant growled lowly while stomping on his face with the boots he was wearing.

“It’s work time. Get to the parts room right now. Do you understand?”

“…Yes, I understand.”

A hoarse voice that surprised even himself.

As soon as he heard the answer, the giant strode out of the room.

Only then did he have the chance to grab his throbbing cheek and look around.

A cramped room filled with a simple bed with a stained sheet. About ten people were looking at him with pitiful eyes.

“You stupid bastard. You didn’t even know the supervisor came and were just sleeping…”

“Leave him alone. He knows he doesn’t have much time left. That’s why the supervisor just slapped him and moved on.”

“Well, if we beat that guy up, he might really die.”

They whispered among themselves like that, then got up and disappeared somewhere, leaving him behind.

He, who had been listening to people’s words blankly, then raised both hands and groped his own body.

A skinny body with ribs that could be felt directly. Thin arms like tree branches and calves with visible veins.

It was the body of a sick person, completely different from the body he had remembered all his life, a body that could collapse at any moment.

“…”

He staggered to his feet and stood in front of a small mirror hanging in a corner of the musty room, and only then did he realize everything.

The image of the young man holding his swollen cheek in the broken mirror was so similar to the appearance of the third character he had created on the monitor.

“Lenok, was it…”

A character he had created only to enjoy the game, without any meaning or value.

The insignificant body, whose name he hadn’t even bothered to give properly, was all he had now.

Lenok was thus thrown into a new world without even a single complaint.

Awakening

Boom!

“Move it, move it!”

The supervisor shouts at the top of his lungs, bustling around the vast parts room.

Crudely assembled metal parts were scattered on the conveyor belt that was constantly turning.

“The assembly members will be collecting the products soon, when are you going to stop dawdling!”

The hairy giant glared at the workers with bloodshot eyes, and the hands of those standing in front of the belt moved a little faster.

The giant was not satisfied with that, and after whipping two or three workers standing nearby with a small riding crop in his hand, he turned his back as if he had vented his anger.

“If you don’t meet the deadline, you better be prepared! I have no intention of putting up with trash that can’t even meet the quota!!”

Lenok, who had been standing at a distance and watching the scene, turned his gaze back to the piece of metal he was holding in his hand.

Three days had already passed since he had woken up in this unknown parts factory called ‘the factory’.

He still didn’t know anything, but Lenok had become surprisingly quickly accustomed to the monotonous work of the factory.

He woke up before sunrise, worked until he was about to collapse from exhaustion, and before going to sleep, he received a bowl of porridge that was worse than food waste.

The work he did all day long was to assemble the scattered metal parts and put them on the conveyor belt.

There was nothing Lenok could do but accept this monotonous and arduous work that didn’t even need to be understood.

Even if he tried to ask something, the workers placed around him were adamantly refusing to talk to him.

It was only a day ago that he realized that the way they looked at Lenok was no different from looking at a dead corpse.

“Haa, haa…”

In the parts room where even ventilation was not properly done, the sweat and stench of the workers mixed and spread as steam, hovering on the ceiling.

Just not being able to breathe fresh air made Lenok’s body quickly become breathless and hot.

More than anything else, the sense of alienation from this body, which was so different from his former self, was tormenting Lenok terribly.

The hellish hard labor that felt like he was about to die continued for more than ten hours without a break.

If there was anything fortunate, it was that even if Lenok stopped assembling parts in the middle, no one would scold him.

The supervisor also just clicked his tongue when he saw Lenok’s pale face, and didn’t seem to have any intention of wasting labor by touching a dying body.

From the moment Lenok noticed that fact, he was able to endure until the end of working hours by gradually slacking off a little.

The work hours, which felt like an eternity, ended, and as scheduled, Lenok received a bowl of dry porridge, which he quickly finished and lay down to sleep.

He closed his eyes while looking at the dark ceiling, but his consciousness was still clear.

It was insomnia.

“Damn it…”

It had already been three days since he had slept properly.

Lenok had a rough idea of where this terrible insomnia came from.

It was one of the many penalties he had attached when setting up the character. Insomnia, which had reached the level of a trait, was tormenting him.

An even more depressing fact was that the penalties attached to this body were not just insomnia.

All sorts of diseases and symptoms that innately weakened his body were eroding and dragging Lenok down.

How long could he last?

What was certain was that the time given to him was not very long.

He didn’t think that a body weakened to the limit could last long in a harsh working environment.

He had been thinking for three days, but the conclusion had been decided from the beginning.

‘I have to escape from here.’

Whether he died of exhaustion in the factory or was caught and killed while escaping, it was the same ending for Lenok.

He had no intention of making the stinky parts room his grave.

What was fortunate was that not all situations were unfavorable to Lenok.

Perhaps because he was being treated as someone who was already dead, the level of control over Lenok was less than that of other workers, and other workers didn’t pay much attention to his actions.

If he could make good use of this point and figure out the structure of the factory, it would be possible to plan an escape route.

Moreover, what was more important than anything else was that this body was not just weak and useless.

If Lenok’s body in this world had various penalties, including insomnia, then Lenok’s talents would also be the same.

The talent for magic that he had poured in even while adding all sorts of bad traits. That aptitude, which had been filled to the limit, was dormant within Lenok’s body.

If he could somehow make use of that talent, it was not an impossible story to actually escape from this factory.

“…”

Lenok also knew.

That he, who was calmly organizing the situation and making plans in this situation where he was mentally and physically pushed to the limit by hard labor and insomnia, was a completely different person than before.

The person he knew was not the kind of person who could maintain reason in this situation.

It was probably the result of the mental talents such as calmness, concentration, and boldness that he had filled in when creating the character.

At that time, he had only invested in the mental abilities necessary for a magician, but as a result, it was acting as the driving force that allowed Lenok, who had been up for three days and nights, to remain sane until now.

Lenok did not believe in the romantic notion that human mental abilities were based on the soul. Rational thinking, a calm mind, and logical reasoning were all talents of the physical body, the brain.

The mental strength that allowed him to maintain his composure now was also a part of the talent that this weak body possessed.

It would be the first step to overcome the current situation to clearly recognize that it was Lenok’s talent, not the former self who pressed the character creation button.

He would not let his guard down for even a single moment until he got out of this hellish factory.

Lenok whipped himself like that and forced himself to sleep.

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