Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 513

Maiya’s assertion, striking right at the core, came out of nowhere. But instead of being surprised, Lenok stared at her intently. He figured that if she, who never did anything unnecessary, was waiting until the very end, there must be a good reason. Either she still had personal business in this city, or she had sensed something from Lenok, who had seemed completely uninterested.

She was a monster who had reached level 8, transcending hierarchies. An executor considered the best even in the notoriously sophisticated and complex machine city. The fact that this executor, who shouldn’t have crossed paths with him, had set foot in Pandemonium was nothing short of a bizarre coincidence.

Just like in the Hanghasa Labyrinth, it wouldn’t be strange if something happened that deviated from Lenok’s expectations.

‘I don’t know your identity, your magic, or your background, but I have a feeling. You know me.’

Maiya stared at Lenok’s mask with an expressionless gaze.

‘And maybe I know you too.’

‘……’

‘No, maybe it wasn’t during the labyrinth… Your presence is eerily faint. But this subtle sense of incongruity… I’m sure I’ve spoken to you directly.’

It was a chilling intuition.

Even though he had tried to minimize contact, this monster was pinpointing Lenok’s identity purely by instinct.

The reason she wasn’t certain even after mentioning the labyrinth was that Lenok’s presence and magic patterns were so distorted and different.

Nevertheless, Maiya was almost certain of her senses and was questioning Lenok.

‘If you joined through a recommendation, you’re probably not related to my goals. So, I won’t pay you any mind. But…’

Maiya’s eyes flashed menacingly for a moment.

‘If you interfere with my work for any reason, I’ll cut you down. Understood?’

Lenok smiled calmly.

‘That’s not something a ghost who hasn’t escaped the failure of the Ascension Gate [a failed attempt to achieve a higher state of being] should be saying.’

‘……!!’

The veins on Maiya’s hand bulged as she met Lenok’s eyes behind the mask.

Fwaaaah!!

A chilling murderous intent, focused on a single person, tightened around him. The force that seemed like it would strangle Lenok to death subsided as if it had never existed in the first place.

It was an incredible display of emotional control that even Lenok was inwardly impressed by.

Maiya stared intently at Lenok’s obsidian mask before slowly turning her back.

‘Anyone who remembers me from the Ascension Gate incident would know.’

‘……’

‘I’m no longer bound by rules and laws. I’ll do whatever it takes to fix the mistake I made. Even if that mistake is…’

Like water poured onto a dark sea.

Maiya muttered those words and vanished in an instant.

An astonishing mobility comparable to spatial teleportation. She had already disappeared beyond Lenok’s sensory range with a single leap.

He somewhat understood why the executor of the machine city was so obsessed with the past.

The failure of the Ascension Gate in Machina must have been a bitter tragedy that completely changed the human being known as Maiya Lenslit.

He was too busy digging into the Black Consumer Project to pay attention to Machina right now, but Lenok was also interested in the machine city’s Ascension Gate.

Gearside, who had once fought Lenok, had also elevated Edmus Trepen, the vice-commander of the defense forces, to level 8 just by consuming the byproducts of that project.

Projects aimed at achieving ascension were all attempts to realize dangerous yet grand ideals.

It was clear that even the traces of such projects would be meaningful indicators for sorcerers like Lenok.

Lenok looked back at the spot where she had disappeared for a moment, then immediately jumped off the theater roof and boarded one of the trains that had belatedly departed.

Kkkkkkkkk!!!

He landed on the last car of the train, which was rapidly rolling along the tracks with a screeching friction sound.

He reduced the recoil with magic and levitation magic, and then, familiar with the process, he stuck to the train’s ceiling and gazed at the sky.

Kwaaaaaaah!!!

Beyond the dark night sky, countless black flashes, barely visible, were pouring down like a rain of death.

‘This is truly absurd…’

The rain of fire arrows that was occupying and pouring down on the entire theater area was a power that completely defied Lenok’s common sense, so much so that he unconsciously spoke to himself.

Its power, range, speed, and precision. Even the direction of the arrows changing their trajectory in real-time, noticing the anomaly and heading towards the trains running in all directions from the theater.

He knew that Ivelyn Marcia was an excellent archer, but he never imagined she had reached this level of divine skill.

No, even if it was Ivelyn, she would need considerable preparation to carry out this kind of bombardment alone.

Not only would she need thousands of arrows, but the act of imbuing each of these arrows with magic and firing them would be an enormous strain.

The fact that this bombardment was still continuing was a miracle, but it would be impossible to move from the place where the sniping was starting.

He suppressed his presence and deflected Ivelyn’s arrows falling from the sky.

Kaaang!!!

Ivelyn, who was constantly firing arrows from outside the city, must have also felt that the presence of Pandemonium was rapidly dispersing.

It was highly likely that she would change her approach from simply raining down arrows over a wide area to a more focused attack.

If she was more skilled than any archer Lenok knew, then she would almost certainly-

‘Try to snipe directly…!’

Swaaeeek!!

A chilling black flash grazed his face.

A sharp shot, barely visible in the dark sky of the satellite city, was relentlessly aimed at Lenok’s neck.

He had been preparing since the moment it was caught by his magic detection.

As if he had been waiting for it, he leaned his whole body back and released magic to change the direction of the arrow.

The arrow narrowly missed the train’s trajectory and pierced through the road surface right next to it.

With that impact, it scattered asphalt fragments in all directions.

Kwaang!!

Rather than targeting each person on the train, it was an attack aimed at destroying the train’s trajectory as well.

Lenok grabbed onto the train’s ceiling with magic and quickly entered the interior seats, lost in thought.

‘She’s not targeting the tracks directly after all.’

Even if she targeted the tracks directly, there was only a limited area she could destroy.

All the members of the Demon Assembly gathered for this settlement were capable enough to temporarily replace the broken tracks.

Since Ivelyn couldn’t spam powerful snipes, she would try to shoot at points that could hinder a sure hit or tracking.

Rather, the fact that she recognized Lenok was on this train at this point and sniped at him was quite remarkable.

Swaaeeek!!

Another sniper shot was fired as if she had been waiting for it.

Perhaps she had decided to focus her attention here after seeing Lenok’s response.

But this time, instead of deflecting Ivelyn’s snipe, Lenok neither blocked it nor left it alone.

A single arrow pierced through the night sky and the train’s ceiling in an instant.

A harpoon-like arrow, similar to the one that had pierced Vernon, spun and stirred the train’s metal like water.

Kwaaang!!

The train’s waist buckled and jumped up as if folding in reverse, derailing from its lane.

Car body fragments rose up, twisting in place and scattering in all directions.

The old seats and luggage compartments floated up, and even Lenok’s body, which had been hanging between them, was lifted into the air.

At the moment just before the impact reached its peak, Lenok’s body disappeared from that spot.

Paat!!

Using blink [a short-range teleportation spell], Lenok’s body quickly escaped outside the train and moved to the side, clinging to magic.

Immediately after, he boarded another train that was passing by behind him.

Kkiik!!

[Currently, there are 64 trains still running. The trains that will be circulating and intersecting nearby are lines 5, 27, and 83.]

Dabi, still holding onto the system that hadn’t shut down, reported the current situation from inside Lenok’s pocket.

[Should I tell you the specific contact times as well?!]

‘No, it’s okay.’

Lenok said that, his face pale, and turned his gaze while clinging to the train.

‘At this point, Ivelyn probably realizes that it’s more cost-effective to target someone else rather than me-‘

Immediately after, Lenok stopped speaking and threw his body out of the train as if he had been ejected.

Despite the somewhat clumsy movement, Lenok’s body, not bound by magic, was thrown out of the train in an instant.

At the same time, a dazzling flash swept through the spot where Lenok had been.

Paat!!

[One found.]

A figure with broad shoulders. A sharp metal suit wrapped around his entire body. A dark blue visor covering his head.

The deep blue light was one of the Aegis members he had never seen before.

[Unidentified manipulation-type sorcerer. Based on the traces left in the members’ database, there’s a high possibility that he’s a capable person who handles two systems simultaneously.]

‘……’

He was exuding explosive magic from his entire body as if he was about to burst.

It was a fierce and violent aura, unable to contain the overflowing power, as if he would burst into flames on the spot.

The visor, adjusting his helmet awkwardly, tilted his head as if loosening up, looking at Lenok’s figure floating in the air.

[Estimated to have a very sophisticated personality in terms of both combat ability and combat intelligence. From now on, we will capture him alive and proceed with the extraction decision.]

He suddenly dashed towards Lenok, as if stepping on the air.

Kagagak!!

A magic circle that rose beneath his feet supported him and pushed him upwards. The visor, who had shot up into the sky, rotated to within close range of Lenok, who was floating in the air.

The shockwave that fell from his leg twisted his shoulder and exploded as if it would pierce his chest in the blink of an eye.

Kwaaang!!

The flash that exploded in the air brightly colored the sky above the train running on the tracks.

Two figures relentlessly stirred through the high-rise buildings of the ghost city, flashing in all directions.

[Don’t run away!!]

‘……!!’

Dududududu!!!!

The visor, having fully drawn up his magic, gracefully twisted his body in the air, and a gray light flashed.

All sorts of flashes, transformed into various bombardments and cutting techniques, poured down on Lenok.

He was a high-level powerhouse who freely used both hand-to-hand combat and spell deployment by simply twisting his body lightly.

Lenok also quickly deployed magic, stretching it out and binding it to the surrounding buildings, and then quickly initiated evasive maneuvers.

The shadow robe, buried in the darkness, swayed back and forth, avoiding the rapidly pouring flashes.

‘Sense of balance…!!’

In the process, the fact that Lenok’s insides were twisted due to excessive movement was unavoidable.

Even though Lenok had improved his overall condition with the Tears of the Archangel, such intense aerial combat was tantamount to suicide.

But in this situation, where he was floating in the air, he couldn’t immediately change the structure of avoiding the opponent’s attacks.

‘I have less than ten blinks left. If I waste them here, it might be difficult to escape from Bairutz.’

He needed a drug that was much stronger than a motion sickness pill.

In a position where he was thrown upside down in the air, Lenok gritted his teeth and rummaged through his pocket.

What was pulled out from the end of the magic was a type of painkiller that completely paralyzed the semicircular canals.

The feeling of his insides twisting or his balance being off would disappear, but while the drug was in effect, he wouldn’t be able to maintain his balance at all.

But Lenok didn’t hesitate for even a moment and swallowed the pill whole.

‘……!!’

Chwarararak!!

At the same time, dozens of magic strands that had stretched out from all sides of Lenok’s robe attached to the walls of nearby buildings.

He then rapidly contracted the magic, adjusting his speed and trajectory.

Swaeek!!

He twisted like a snake crawling through the air, approaching the visor at close range.

The blue visor, as if waiting for it, swung his fist with all his might at Lenok, who had come right in front of him.

But the blade of the gale that burst out from under his forearm did not touch the robe.

[You…!!]

The visor realized that the direction the robe was heading was towards one of the trains that was still intact, and the moment he tried to turn his back.

The image of an incendiary bomb attached to the back of the visor was visible through the window of the building next to him.

Kwaaaang!!

Immediately after, it exploded in the air with a dazzling blaze.

Lenok, who didn’t even look back at the explosion that had erupted above his head, immediately landed on another train.

He then squeezed into the passenger compartment and rolled his body.

Kudangtang!!

‘Ugh…!!’

After swallowing a painkiller that made him completely forget his sense of balance, it was as difficult to stand as expected.

While groaning, he forcibly connected magic to his arms and legs to stand up.

A strange sensation of moving his limbs as if he were controlling himself like a puppet with threads attached to them.

After completely replacing the magic manipulation with his thoughts, he divided the control area into finger joint units and controlled them.

Lenok, who had become like a machine, slowly but steadily grabbed a nearby chair and stood up, loosening his neck as he moved.

‘It’s much less repulsive than I thought…’

It wasn’t that he had swallowed the drug recklessly without any plan or thought.

After all, in order for Lenok to continue moving forward with his current body, he knew that he would have to try this kind of manipulation in actual combat someday.

Until now, he had dealt with close combat only with his transcendent intuition and strategy, but there might come a time when he would have to engage in hand-to-hand combat with this frail body.

If that was the case, it would be better to control his own body directly with magic manipulation rather than relying on Lenok’s terrible athletic ability.

Lenok had intended to experiment with it directly on his own body before the inspiration he had felt while watching the puppeteer Chebien disappeared.

As he quickly headed towards the front driver’s compartment of the train, Lenok opened his mouth.

‘What are the intersecting railways nearby?’

[In 2 minutes and 5 seconds, lines 6 and 47, and in 3 minutes and 38 seconds, line 21!]

‘Good.’

Lenok said that, flung open the door to the control room, touched the train’s operating system, and then turned his gaze to the sky.

‘That much time will be enough.’

Kwaaang!!

Immediately after, the figure of a person who had fallen as if hammered down at the end of the train and was striding towards Lenok appeared.

Although parts of his suit were scorched, the dark blue visor itself was intact.

Lenok also knew that his opponent wouldn’t die from just that level of explosion.

[You’re making useless moves. Did you think you could avoid being tracked by just using your head that much?]

Thud, thud!!

The dark night train that was crossing the heart of the satellite city.

From the end of the wide-open passenger passage, the visor was walking in, and behind him, unknown spell characters were constantly appearing and disappearing.

Considering that the Aegis members were those who had learned new spells in addition to their original abilities, it was likely that his opponent was also a capable person who had gained a powerful spell.

[The external force that has been reinforced for this operation is not just Hyungung [a type of powerful magic]. Now that I’ve captured you, there’s no way I’ll ever let you go.]

‘I see.’

Lenok chuckled.

‘But I didn’t say a word about Hyungung, is it okay for you to tell me first?’

[…From the moment the rain of arrows was fired, it was inevitable that our forces would be exposed.]

As the visor massaged his wrists, his forearms began to burn on top of his suit.

Chiiiik…!!

As if they had been dipped in hot lava, his forearms melted the nearby seats as he grabbed them.

The visor, having melted away the passage door, stood facing Lenok in the same passenger compartment and tilted his head.

[If we can capture a Pandemonium’s special-type sorcerer and analyze his spells, that will be enough. It’s a shame we couldn’t capture the Doctor himself, but it can be considered a gain in its own right.]

‘You’re just saying in a roundabout way that you were too scared of Maiya Lenslit to interfere.’

Lenok adjusted his mask and spoke to the silent blue visor.

‘I know there was an informant inside the Demon Assembly. You could have intervened at any time. From the beginning, you weren’t targeting the Doctor, were you?’

‘[……]’

‘No, if you want to be precise, you were targeting the Doctor, but you yourselves didn’t have high expectations. It’s not surprising if you were more interested in the byproducts than the Doctor.’

Lenok chuckled as he looked at his silent opponent.

‘The Aegis members are given the right to extract the spells of the members they capture and obtain them directly… If there’s a rule like that, then your ridiculous obsession right now wouldn’t be unexplainable. What do you think?’

[Hehehe…]

Chiiiik…!!

The visor, loosening his body by bending his heated fingers one by one, burst into laughter with a gloomy voice.

[That answer, I think I can only give it to you after dragging your corpse back to Vulcan. Is that okay?]

‘Sure. What does it matter?’

Lenok also let out a sharp laugh and gripped his magic tightly.

Chwararararak!!

Dozens of magic strands flashed from all sides of the half-destroyed passenger compartment.

All those threads were attached to various parts of Lenok’s robe, manipulating Lenok’s body like a puppet.

Swaeek!!

He dodged the black arrow that pierced through the window with just a tilt of his head.

At that moment, when the visor paused at the unusual movement, Lenok chuckled and asked.

‘It’s something you could just ask the person directly. Don’t you think so, traitor?’