Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 230

The Renegade Monk (2)

“Fifty years.”

McQueen muttered.

“Fifty years have passed since I came down from the mountain following him. So many things happened to build the cartel. I crawled through the darkness of the streets, enduring all sorts of humiliation and disgrace, and there wasn’t a day I didn’t smell blood. There were times when I had no water to drink, so I quenched my thirst with the blood of the corpses I killed.”

His sunken eyes left Lenok and began to gaze at the scenery beyond.

“I never regretted giving up my ascetic practices. Following him always brought me excessive wealth and glory. Every day was difficult, but it was a rewarding moment beyond that. There wasn’t even time to reflect on each day.”

“……”

“But I was too old from the moment I came down from the mountain. When I arrived in the Balkans, I was already close to eighty. I was on a different starting line from the other executives who still maintained their youth from the beginning.”

McQueen stared down at his own hands.

At his tattoos, weathered, wrinkled, and worn away by the elements.

It was a sign of aging that no human could avoid.

“I was granted a new lease on life by reaching the realm of the Saint, but even that has its limits now. I’ve been denying it until now, but I knew it in my heart. That the gap between me and the others was widening….”

Lenok quietly listened to McQueen’s sincere monologue.

The aging and death that a high-level sorcerer faces. What is the fear of facing the end of that long lifespan?

There wouldn’t be many opportunities to hear it if not for this place.

“My loyalty to the chairwoman remains unchanged even now. But unlike her, who still boasts divine power, I was becoming a useless part.”

“……”

McQueen’s face, which had been muttering calmly, changed to one of extreme pain.

He muttered without holding back the agony and worries that had accumulated over a century.

Just speaking out the fear that he had been piling up and forgetting.

The fear of facing his own ugliness was breaking down his serious face.

The last monologue leaked from his mouth as he covered his face with one hand.

“Before I am abandoned by her, I would rather……”

“Are you saying you thought of betraying her first?”

“Well… I don’t know anymore. What I truly wanted and longed for… I’m still pathetically searching for the answer.”

Lenok shook his head as he looked at the self-deprecating McQueen.

Even a superhuman with a strong mentality, a solid body, and a clear mind could not escape the fear of the passage of time.

As much as he had settled down for decades, he could not withstand the changes to come and collapsed.

“But, it’s enough now.”

The moment he gripped the staff in his hand so hard that it seemed to break, and slammed it down on the ground,

KWA-A-A-A-A-A!!

An extremely fierce aura began to erupt from his thick body.

At the same time, the tattoos engraved on his entire body crawled along his skin, drawing a unique pattern.

The dozens of rings at the end of the staff clanged madly.

“By confessing my ugly inner self, I have gained power. This will be a promise and a constraint that proves my own truth.”

“Is it sorcery…?”

A method of confessing one’s inner self and motives and using it as a geas [a magical compulsion] to draw out power.

Parden McQueen had modified and used the conditions that sorcerers who had reached their limits used to push their skills to the extreme in a different way.

“This trial will also be part of the process of finding the answer, so I will seize the last chance the chairwoman has given me and return to her side.”

The pain that had been on McQueen’s face had disappeared without a trace.

Only the tattoos engraved on his bald head were rotating around the crown of his head, constantly chanting unknown incantations.

He was making hand seals with one hand while continuously slamming the staff into the ground with the other.

Unknown words poured out of McQueen’s mouth without a break, but Lenok was just watching it quietly.

He knew, as someone who had been through many battles.

That the outcome would not be decided by something like this.

For Lenok, it was the first battle against a level 7 high-level sorcerer.

It was much more important to remember every single movement he made.

PA-A-A-A-!!

According to the movement of the staff slammed into the ground, a fierce ripple arose on the floor.

Within the ripples that spread into the air, an alien power wriggled and eventually tore open the space itself.

‘This is….’

Lenok, who had many opportunities to encounter spatial abilities, knew it right away.

This is not an ordinary spell or magic.

Rather, it was closer to a natural flow that did not defy the laws of the world.

Like a door opening through a legitimate contract.

[Declaration of Summoning Release]

[Arjumarta]

DU-DU-DU-DU-DUNG!!

At that moment, a huge stone statue nearly ten meters tall appeared behind McQueen, tearing through the ripples and revealing itself on the rooftop of the skyscraper.

The stone statue, summoned from a height of 800m, clung to the wall of the building like a spider, only showing its face on the rooftop and glaring at Lenok with an angry face.

In the storm of fierce magical power, McQueen cried out.

“Raise your hands, magician!!!”

“……”

“I will begin the handover!!!”

* * *

“It has begun.”

Vergil nodded at the view of the building visible on the screen.

A yellow ripple arose in the empty skyscraper, and at the same time, a huge stone statue appeared.

Iola, who saw the stone statue instantly embedding its limbs into the building wall and roaring, muttered in a disgusted tone.

“CEO McQueen is bringing that out from the start….”

The power of Parden McQueen, a level 7 sorcerer, originally came from the mountains where he had practiced asceticism [a lifestyle of severe self-discipline].

Even though he had been tainted by the secular world, his training had always been his powerful weapon without fading.

In particular, the [Liberation Technique] and [Jukye Domain] that he mainly used were traditional techniques of high monks who practiced asceticism in the Evatra Mountains.

It is specialized in exerting various influences in all directions, encompassing direct and indirect techniques.

McQueen, a powerful sorcerer and a high-level martial artist, boasts top-notch combat abilities in both long-range and close-range combat,

He is also skilled at granting power enhancements to allies and imposing curses and restraints on enemies.

If McQueen had led his subordinates into the battle as he originally intended, his combat ability would have doubled.

The fact that the situation was prevented and led to a one-on-one duel was due to Vergil’s active intervention, as Lenok had expected.

“I have to do this much to keep the promise I made with Ban.”

Vergil smiled.

“You have to make a good impression on him to get your eyes back, right?”

“First of all, it is important that this matter ends well… but the situation doesn’t look so good.”

Iola replied with a sullen expression.

“The fact that he brought that out is proof that McQueen’s condition is very good, isn’t it?”

McQueen is not only the oldest of the executives, but also by far the oldest sorcerer in the entire cartel.

He had been active as a powerful level 7 sorcerer for a long time, but he was an old man who had been on a gradual downward curve for at least several decades.

Therefore, there were rumors among the executives that he often had difficulty controlling his condition and that his high-level techniques became more erratic each time he used them.

Perhaps because McQueen was aware of these rumors, it had been over 20 years since he had appeared on the scene himself.

Unexpectedly, he had brought out his signature summon, Arjumarta, from the start.

Arjumarta, who is summoned through a contract with a being from another world through the Jukye Domain, and then summoned with legitimate rights through the Liberation Technique, was the most powerful technique support of McQueen’s summoning techniques and was like a summon that symbolized the renegade monk in his prime.

Iola still vividly remembered its power when she first joined the cartel.

She said with a worried expression.

“If McQueen wins the battle against Ban, it will be a headache in many ways. The artifacts and relics that Ban himself possesses are also presumed to be quite valuable, and there is a high possibility that McQueen will absorb his sphere of influence entirely.”

The reason why Vergil had been so active was that it was necessary to take decisive action with the aim of effectively removing McQueen.

He thought that there was no future without ruthlessly cutting off a traitor who had betrayed the organization.

However, for some reason, Oliviera gave McQueen a chance to cover up his mistake.

And that boomerang might not just be aimed at Vergil.

“Although he doesn’t have much time left, if he gets help from the chairwoman….”

“You don’t have to worry about that. The chairwoman didn’t seem very interested in their battle today.”

“……Does that mean the outcome has already been decided?”

“Well… it seems like she doesn’t want to waste time.”

Vergil replied.

“Actually, there’s not much point in us watching this. McQueen’s self-defense domain is more specialized in hiding himself from external gazes than anything else… I guess you won’t see anything when the battle heats up.”

“……”

“Let’s enjoy it moderately and get out of here. This might be the last time we see Arjumarta.”

Vergil’s eyes, as he said that, were endlessly cold and sunken.

“At least I think that probability is much higher.”

At that moment when Vergil was muttering like that, someone suddenly appeared in front of Jenny’s bar.

‘She’ who slowly walked down the stairs to the bar, fluttering her colorful robe, slowly raised her gaze.

She smiled slightly as she made eye contact with Jenny, who was shaking a shaker in the corner of the bar.

[I finally have time to talk.]

Even as Lenok was crossing the line between life and death, the world was constantly moving.

Another relationship was about to be settled in this place today.

* * *

DU-DU-DU-DU-DU!!

Dozens of beams of light crossing the rooftop of the building were shot down directly at Lenok.

The fragments of the shield that Lenok had rotated dashed in all directions at the same time, deflecting the beams with a time difference,

And pierced through the floor of the building’s rooftop and penetrated diagonally.

ZIIIIIIIIING!!

Even as the skyscraper that the cartel had worked so hard to manage began to be destroyed helplessly, McQueen’s hand was relentless.

The rooftop of the skyscraper where the two sorcerers were standing shook greatly at the same time as the stone statue, which had embedded its limbs into the wall of the building, tilted its body, and Lenok staggered.

McQueen, not missing the gap, shook his staff, and in accordance with that movement, the magic power that fell out turned into dozens of arrows of reverse fields.

At the same time, the stone statue grabbed the arrows of the reverse field with one hand and swung them as they were, and a blurry vortex poured down on Lenok like fireworks.

KWA-GWA-GWA-GWA-GWA!!

With that powerful destructive force, a corner of the building’s rooftop collapsed in an instant, and debris began to fall down.

In the pouring bombardment, only Lenok’s shield was moving madly forward.

“……”

Behind him, Lenok, who had taken out a cigarette, was just looking up at McQueen with a sharp gaze.

‘It’s not a simple summon.’

Basically, magicians, especially summons that are summoned using summoning techniques, are used to compensate for the most fatal weaknesses of the sorcerer.

Sorcerers who are devoted to the training and asceticism of techniques tend to be relatively vulnerable to close combat or lack talent, even though they possess powerful magic power, and it is common to fill the lack of close combat and the front line through summons.

However, instead of leading the battle with his summon, McQueen was rather standing in front of Arjumarta and wielding the stone statue like a baton.

Conversely, the mass attacks and technique support abilities emitted by the huge stone statue as it moved constantly checked Lenok and poured out continuous firepower.

‘Did he summon a summon that supports his techniques because he is confident in close combat? No, it’s not that simple. He doesn’t seem to lack combat ability….’

It’s an interesting method.

Lenok watched quietly, without even thinking of countering the bombardment that McQueen was constantly pouring out.

DU-DU-DU-DU-DU!!!

Dozens of beams of light and barrages from the sky, and at the same time, a mass of unharmed matter poured down on Lenok, but Lenok’s shield moved first.

The shields, which had been split into dozens of pieces in front of Lenok’s eyes, simultaneously compressed and rotated, reducing the area of impact, and deflecting and deflecting all attacks at the precise moment by lowering the angle.

KA-GA-GAK!!

“……!!”

Lenok smiled as he confirmed that McQueen’s mouth, who had been chanting the technique with all his might, was twitching.

The shield that Lenok uses is still the same common magic he used at the beginning, and the number of overlaps is only five.

The only reason why Lenok has not improved his shield magic so far, despite the strength that was pierced even by Girard’s all-out attack, is this.

This was the extent to which the capacity of the shield magic had been reduced to the point where it was almost integrated with Lenok’s consciousness.

Shield magic is very useful, but on the other hand, it requires a huge amount of magic power each time the strength is increased.

The more magic power is invested, the heavier the capacity of the magic becomes, and the more difficult it becomes for Lenok to handle it.

From Lenok’s point of view, who freely controls the dispersion, concentration, compression, and rotation of the shield, it was much more efficient to let the impact flow while maintaining a moderate strength.

The important thing is not to completely block the attack, but to create a moment for Lenok to respond.

Although Lenok’s combat style, which does not rely on shield magic at all, despite having no mobility, is bizarre.

No one could say that it was wrong.

‘The pattern is roughly understood.’

Long-range bombardment is the most efficient means of attack that a sorcerer can use, but conversely, because of that, the number of techniques that can be used is standardized for each sorcerer.

Unless the battle becomes more intense, it will not be easy to maintain more than this level of attack and defense in the current situation.

Lenok, who had finished calculating, quickly began to turn his head.

‘Considering the means I have… I can end the fight within five times.’

“Good.”

WHOOOOOOONG!!

Lenok, who had drawn up his magic power, raised his left hand in an instant.

Dozens of thick currents flowing from between his long five fingers twisted, tied, and rotated in an instant, turning into a huge lightning spear.

Change of Properties of Unique Lightning Magic

[Naraesal (Spiral Lightning Kill)]

PA-JI-JI-JI-JIK!!!

The blue light spear that rose along his left forearm glowed as it swirled in the air.

In that short moment, he had twisted the lightning and rotated it so strongly that the tip of the spear was drawing a perfect spiral.

At the same time as McQueen flinched, Lenok released the hand that was holding the spear.

There was no need to throw it. The Naraesal, shot according to Lenok’s will, became a single flash of light and rushed towards where McQueen was.

PA-A-A-A-ANG!!

A speed that surpassed the gap of perception. But McQueen did not avoid it.

He had watched Lenok completely deflect his attacks from the front.

Besides, if he dodged here, it would be his summon that would be hit by that Naraesal.

“Huuup……!!”

McQueen, who had made hand seals in an instant, slammed the staff into the ground.

[Naehaemun (Damage Resistance Gate)]

KU-KU-KU-KU!!!

An arched gate, summoned as if a huge maw was rising from the ground, blocked Lenok’s lightning as it was.

Lenok muttered as he looked at it.

“You should have dodged.”

The spearhead of the Naraesal, which had been twisted to the extreme, grabbed the thick iron wall of the Naehaemun and dug into the inside.

KA-GA-GA-GAK!!

Just as it twists the force from the inside to destroy the shield, the Naraesal is the most optimized siege magic for breaking through the barrier and tearing off flesh.

It is closer to a siege ram than a spear.

The lightning spear that broke through the Naehaemun in an instant rushed towards McQueen.

KWA-A-A-ANG!!

The solid arm of the stone statue standing behind him grabbed the Naraesal as it was and twisted its direction.

DU-DU-DU-DU-DUK!!

“Ugh…….”

McQueen’s body was safe by a hair’s breadth, but the price was considerable.

The lightning that pierced Arjumarta’s left arm passed through the back of the stone statue’s shoulder, and a huge shockwave erupted.

TU-EO-EONG!!

The flower of lightning that bloomed beyond the blue sky shattered and disappeared on the cold wind.

McQueen’s face hardened in an instant at the firepower that surpassed common sense.

At first glance, it seems like they exchanged fierce attacks, but the reality is different.

None of the attacks that McQueen had attempted so far had worked, and conversely, the first magic that Lenok had thrown had blown off the left arm of the stone statue.

On the rooftop of the skyscraper.

Even in a disadvantageous battlefield surrounded by a huge summon, where the space to avoid was limited, Lenok had accurately seen the core.

That stark truth that, in terms of the same firepower, McQueen, who had a larger area of impact, was rather unable to avoid it.

Lenok looked up at McQueen and asked.

“Don’t you think the stage you prepared is too cramped?”

“……”

McQueen flinched and averted his gaze at the intense gaze with blue light flowing out.

“The preliminary battle is over. If you really want to live and find the answer, you have to go all out from now on.”

At the same time as those words, Lenok began to quickly make hand seals with both hands hanging down.