Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 9

‘Found him.’

The moment Lenok killed Taylor, a faint tremor arose.

Lenok didn’t miss the fluctuating magical energy that resonated with it.

He checked.

The distance was about 600 meters. Rather than widening the distance to over 1km, Lenok’s assumption that the sniper was avoiding detection through some special method turned out to be correct.

The moment he pinpointed the location, Lenok immediately gathered his magic power and rotated it around his right hand.

Whooong!!

With a strange sensation as if the magic power was being inverted, it transcended space and scattered into the sky.

He knew it in theory, but this was his first time using it.

Among the common magic spells, it was an application magic that boasted top-tier power, a symbol of the lightning element.

[Thunder Calling]

The moment he felt a flash of blue magic light in the air, a bolt of lightning descended, piercing the sky and striking down.

A lightning strike.

KWA-AAANG!!

A tremor shook the ground. A blue light flashed along with the delayed thunder.

Lenok watched the scene with an intrigued gaze.

When he saw other mages using it in the game, he didn’t feel anything, but seeing the lightning strike manifest in reality gave him a strange feeling.

It was better than expected. It seemed more than enough to say he could use lightning magic anywhere.

Did he die?

If he didn’t run away the moment he noticed, there was no way he could have avoided it.

Lenok immediately headed to the place where the lightning struck, but other than a crater about 2 meters in diameter, he couldn’t find any trace of a body.

Did he run away the moment he gathered his magic power?

Lenok considered whether to continue chasing the sniper, but soon gave up.

This much would be enough of a warning to others who might be secretly watching this place.

It would be sufficient to make the name of the lightning mage ‘Ban’ known.

He didn’t ask for much. It was enough if he could prevent unnecessary checks or interference in the work he was assigned.

Of course, if he acted like this, more people would try to dig into his background… but wasn’t that why he had taken on this new identity?

Lenok believed in his magical talent. It was a talent that defied the heavens, created by trading his lifespan.

He didn’t know how skilled the mages of this world were, but Lenok’s talent would never be lacking.

There was nothing he could do without believing that.

Suppressing his faint anxiety with firm reason, Lenok collected Taylor’s body, put it in a pre-prepared sack, and hoisted it onto his back.

Perhaps because he had smoked the special tobacco in preparation for a possible physical fight, he wasn’t too weak.

Of course, he might suffer from muscle pain once the effects of the smoke wore off, but he wouldn’t use magic to enhance his strength.

For him, magic was the most powerful weapon and his last resort. He needed to save it as much as possible unless he was facing an enemy.

He retraced his steps back to District 49.

Blood dripped from the inside of the sack, but no pedestrian in this area was sensitive enough to care about such things.

He arrived at Jenny’s bar inside the area, but the shutters were closed.

Lenok hesitated for a moment before banging on the closed shutters.

After a while, an old voice came from inside.

‘We’re open from 8 PM.’

‘I caught Taylor Evans.’

A moment of silence passed. The old man, who was a bit slow to understand the meaning of the words, sighed and said,

‘…There’s a back door behind the building, come in that way.’

Indeed, as the old man said, there was a small side door at the back of the building.

When he opened the door and went inside, a scene similar to yet different from the bar he had seen earlier unfolded.

Beyond the counter, which was divided by a glass window, the old man was staring at him.

The old man, seeing Lenok entering with the sack on his back, said,

‘From now on, use this side when discussing work. We should have told you when you first came, but Jenny and I mistakenly forgot.’

‘Understood. Let’s check this first.’

Lenok replied and placed the sack he was carrying on the table.

Thump!

‘It’s Taylor Evans himself.’

‘Wait a moment.’

The old man groaned, then put on gloves from under the counter and began to examine the inside of the sack.

Seeing that he didn’t even flinch while taking out the corpse in front of him, he was no ordinary person.

‘Cause of death is a gunshot wound. He hasn’t been dead for an hour. There are traces of ear damage before the head was damaged, and judging by his poor nutritional state, he hasn’t eaten anything for days. There’s no particular magical alteration, and all his organs are intact, so it’s him.’

Lenok clicked his tongue at the old man’s ability to deduce so much just by looking at the crumpled figure in the sack.

‘Are you a coroner or something?’

‘I used to do something similar. Will you take the reward now?’

When Lenok nodded, the old man immediately took out cash and placed it on the counter.

‘It’s 2.7 million Cell, excluding the 10% commission. If you want to receive it in a different way, there will be an additional fee.’

‘What other ways are there?’

‘There are many. You can have it deposited into a nominee account, or if it’s a more complicated matter, you can request money laundering, or it can be given in the form of bonds or stocks.’

So, the financial system in Balkan works similarly to Earth.

While Lenok was storing the various pieces of information the old man had mentioned in his head, someone walked out from behind the dark curtain behind the old man.

‘Oh? You’re already here?’

Jenny, with a tired face, yawned while brushing back her greasy hair.

‘Haaah… I wondered who was here at this hour, were you that desperate for money?’

Lenok readily nodded at Jenny’s crooked smile.

‘I just did it because I could.’

‘Well, you’re quite skilled for a mage.’

Jenny pulled a chair next to the old man, sat down, and asked, resting her chin on her hand,

‘Usually, these bounty hunts take much longer to find the target than to kill them, but how did you catch the rat so quickly, Mr. Ban?’

‘I was lucky.’

Jenny chuckled at Lenok’s obvious answer.

She didn’t expect a proper answer either, as she immediately changed the subject.

‘If you can bring results in half a day, it means you can take care of yourself. I think we can continue working with you.’

‘I don’t mind if you arrange another job for me right away.’

Either way, he would have to visit District 49 again to get another job from this place.

He wanted to avoid taking two trips, but Jenny immediately shook her head.

‘No way, go back for now. We’ll hand over the results of this job to Achilles’ representative, check the Scavenger’s movements, and then wrap things up.’

‘Once isn’t enough?’

‘You catch on quick. We need to see how well you work, Mr. Ban. That way, we can always arrange suitable deals for you, right?’

‘Hmm…’

‘It doesn’t seem like that’s the only reason.’

Jenny’s words flowed smoothly as if they were oiled, but Lenok didn’t believe her words at face value.

The reasons she gave sounded plausible, but often, such seemingly reasonable reasons were actually meaningless.

However, instead of picking at her words, Lenok readily accepted the cash the old man offered.

‘Then, see you next time.’

‘…Wait, I have a question.’

‘What is it?’

He was worried because he didn’t know where to find similar items, but perhaps she could give him a good answer.

Lenok turned around and took out the special tobacco from his pocket, placing it in front of her.

‘I’m looking for a place that sells things similar to this. It doesn’t have to be in the form of tobacco, I’d like to see a variety of products.’

‘…….’

She didn’t say anything, but Lenok didn’t miss the quick exchange of glances between Jenny and the old man.

Jenny slowly raised her hand, picked up the tobacco, and began to carefully examine it.

It was as if Lenok had handed her a bomb.

She slowly examined the exterior, then slowly brought it to her nose and smelled it.

For a moment, her head twitched, but she quickly returned to a relaxed expression.

Only then did Jenny put down the tobacco with a relieved look and sighed.

‘Haa… I thought it was some newly developed electronic drug.’

‘Do you know what this is?’

At Lenok’s question, Jenny nodded.

‘It’s just a common recreational item. I don’t know the product name, but I know the ingredients. It’s a mix of crushed Melodis and Alpinia leaves with vegetable oil.’

Jenny handed the tobacco back to him and said,

‘But for a mage, you like such cheap products? If you keep smoking this, your head will go bad.’

‘My head?’

‘Yeah. The recipe is so simple, and the workmanship is so crude, it’s obviously trash. Well, I understand why a mage like you would like this, but if you want to smoke something, you should buy something expensive, it has fewer side effects.’

‘…….’

Indeed, what he had was something that came out of the factory supervisor’s pocket.

It wasn’t surprising that it was a product with severe side effects, even if it wasn’t very expensive, as long as it was effective.

‘Anyway, if you like this kind of thing, go to Plumber’s Orchard. It’s a place that caters to smokers like you, they have a wide variety of products. You might find something you like there.’

She said that and told him the approximate location of the ‘Orchard’.

Lenok nodded after hearing the explanation of which area it was in.

‘Thank you for the information. I’ll come again next time.’

‘Okay. See you again.’

Lenok, who was walking away with his back to Jenny waving her hand, suddenly stopped.

‘Wait, I have one more question.’

‘What is it?’

‘Can I get a similar explanation on the topic of health supplements?’

#

After Lenok had completely disappeared, the old man cleaned up the body of Taylor Evans that he had left behind.

He took pictures, collected genetic information, sealed it, and then delivered it separately to Achilles’ broker.

Another commission was generated in the process, but what could he do?

In this business, it was impossible to talk about costs without including commissions.

Jenny, who was resting her chin on her hand next to him, watching the old man’s movements, said,

‘A customer who looks for both drug-type tobacco and health supplements at the same time, isn’t that strange?’

‘Are you talking about that mage from earlier?’

‘Yeah. If I were a merchant, I would have wondered if he was crazy. I can’t understand what mages are thinking. But that’s how geniuses are.’

Jenny seemed to think she could just laugh it off, but the old man, Jordan, thought differently.

He slowly opened his mouth while silently cleaning the counter.

‘I found out something interesting by bypassing the Scavenger’s network.’

Jenny immediately frowned at Jordan’s words.

‘Old man, are you still observing that cesspool? The cost of paying the Mirror Diver to spy on those bastards’ network is too much.’

The Mirror Divers were one of the criminal organizations in Balkan, a group of hackers who ran a business of seizing parts of the city’s network and selling the byproducts.

They had a large number of magical engineering engineers and programmers, and their technology was so advanced that it was relatively convenient to go through them to use the network in this area.

Even if that network belonged to another organization.

However, Jordan did not lose his composure and replied to her words.

‘It seems they secured a photo of Taylor Evans’ death. It has the magic he used in it, do you want to check it? I think he’ll be a much better customer than you think.’

‘What?’

She immediately turned on the computer under the counter and accessed the data Jordan had mentioned.

The criminal organization Scavenger was overwhelming in size compared to other organizations or clans, but the level of its members was quite low, so the actual power they had built was quite low.

Except for the core leadership, the rest were more like a gang of street thugs, but if there was one thing they did that was helpful to the organization, it was—

‘Found it. Here it is. These guys are everywhere.’

Because they were scattered like trash all over the city, they could report on almost every incident that occurred in the area.

New drug

Of course, the level of their eyewitness accounts was no different from that of other ordinary people, but sometimes that alone was helpful, so Jordan had occasionally created a backdoor in the network used by the Scavengers.