Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 1139

Bang!!

The hospital room door burst open as a hooded figure stormed in.

Red eyes glinted from behind an obsidian mask, a fierce presence scanning the room.

“Hah…!!”

“S-sorry!!”

The staff, who had been tidying up the room, paled and scrambled away from the menacing gaze.

Lenox, having cleared the room with a single glance, looked down at the patient on the bed.

“Victor.”

The clown, lying there casually with an IV drip in his hand, grinned.

“You’re here sooner than I expected. I thought it would take a bit longer.”

“…”

“We fought together, but it seems only Victor came out unscathed? That’s a bit unfair.”

Ignoring the clown’s banter, Lenox stared intently at the clown on the bed.

Disheveled gray hair, a patchwork of mismatched clothes.

A grotesque appearance, like pieces of a living human crudely stitched together.

But Lenox knew that the clown’s survival wasn’t just luck.

This madman, who seemed to rely on sheer luck, was actually a gambler who cheated and manipulated the odds in every contest.

Even this battle was the result of the clown deceiving and manipulating everyone on the battlefield, including Lenox.

Frankly, to Lenox, both of them were clearly insane-

But it was still necessary to confirm.

“Did you plan everything up to this point?”

“Plan?”

The clown tilted his head, then chuckled as he finally understood Lenox’s words.

“Ah, you mean the self-destruct. To be honest, it wasn’t that meticulously planned and prepared…”

The clown scratched his cheek and replied casually.

“It was something I had to do eventually. I thought it might be possible if I got lucky.”

“That dart. It wasn’t meant to store a good result in the first place.”

Lenox glared down at the clown with a cold gaze.

At the final moment of the clash with the two highest-ranking apostles of the Order in the stadium.

Lenox had immediately realized why the dart had landed on [Fail] in that battle.

“You were using it to postpone the worst result from the roulette.”

“I thought it would be fun if I revealed my abilities in front of the apostles.”

The clown chuckled and shook his head.

“When I used my domain to escape from Cabahim, I got a [Fail], but it wasn’t a situation where I could be penalized. Actually, I made the dart for the first time then.”

“…”

He had created a luck-manipulating device called a dart on the spot to postpone the domain penalty and kept it with him.

Lenox knew that the clown was a very skilled sorcerer in handling illusions and geas [a magical compulsion], but he never imagined that he could ‘adjust’ even the domain abilities based on the core essence.

“I didn’t think there was any reason to keep it for long, so I mixed in some psychological warfare and detonated it on the spot. It seems it worked out well, according to Victor.”

“Indeed, it did.”

Lenox gave a chilling smile.

“It was more than enough to make me want to kill you.”

“Puhahaha!! You’ve become quite the comedian since I last saw you-”

Swoosh!!

A magic bullet grazed the clown’s cheek as he was laughing heartily.

The clown quietly shut his mouth after confirming that the magic bullet had pierced through the bed and the hospital wall simultaneously.

Only then did Lenox cross his arms and speak again.

“The self-destruct you used at the end. It was close to an antimatter phenomenon accompanied by the recoil of severing a tier [a level of magical power].”

The reason why the highest-ranking apostles of the Order were bewildered by the clown’s trick using the roulette’s [Fail] was simple.

The explosion, which was triggered by the clown sacrificing his own tier, was powerful enough to cause particle-antiparticle annihilation.

“Why are you still alive after receiving the penalty of the self-domain?”

“Ah, that part is actually a trade secret.”

The clown covered his mouth slyly.

“Just because a [Fail] comes up on the roulette doesn’t mean I can’t use illusions right away. So, I made some preparations of my own.”

“I don’t know what kind of preparations you’re talking about. Are you saying you cheated death with illusions?”

“Hmm, well… it’s more like a preparation to not die even after death.”

For a moment, the clown unusually trailed off.

“It’s like manipulating and overlapping the bias of self-awareness… It’s related to the concept of truth and falsehood in illusions, so it’s a bit difficult to explain in words.”

“…”

“Well, to put it simply, you can think of it as causing a kind of error in the concept of reality observation. But why are you looking at me like that?”

“…No.”

Lenox said after a moment of silence.

“I didn’t expect such a highly specialized explanation to come out of your mouth. Were you handling illusions from such a metaphysical perspective?”

“No, how did you usually see me?”

The clown shrugged his shoulders with a wronged expression.

“Even though I look like this, I always think seriously when I work. For example-”

“For example?”

The clown, who had been lost in thought for a moment, grinned and said.

“Like what pose I should take when I die during a self-destruct to look the coolest. It’s a very important issue, isn’t it?”

“…”

The air instantly turned cold.

Ignoring the clown’s nonsense, Lenox calmly reviewed the battle from a few days ago.

Although various situations and bad luck had overlapped, the fact that the highest-ranking apostles were deceived by the clown’s trick remained unchanged.

Lenox, who had moved without trusting the clown in the first place, was safe, but the apostles who were facing him couldn’t easily ignore the clown’s self-domain.

The achievement of not being pushed back against the two highest-ranking apostles of the Order, and creating variables even in unfavorable conditions with poor condition and luck.

There was no need to mention how outstanding the clown’s ability was to make all those judgments on the fly and execute them perfectly.

‘He’s definitely dangerous…’

From the first time they met until now, he was still an unfathomable madman.

He was so twisted that he couldn’t be trusted for even a moment, but that was precisely why he was a strong and reliable force.

“Ahem, well, if the result was good, then everything is good, isn’t it?”

The clown subtly changed the subject, leaving Lenox lost in thought.

“I already knew who was in this city. I thought that even if things went wrong, I could somehow manage.”

“Are you talking about the doctor who operated on your body?”

“Ah, you must have seen him since Victor arrived early.”

The clown grinned.

“Then, it would be better to introduce him here.”

Bang!!

The hospital room door opened, and a man walked in with an annoyed expression.

“The surgery is over. The facilities here are so crude that there’s nothing to clean up or tidy.”

The man, holding up both hands as if he had just washed them, took off the thin surgical gloves he was wearing.

The man threw the gloves onto the bed as if discarding them and touched his hands with a displeased look.

“Compared to my operating room, this place is a hotbed of filth. Your whole body must be a mass of bacteria by now, so don’t come near me for a while.”

“Victor, this is Avesta Chapman.”

The clown ignored the man’s words and turned his gaze.

“He used to be called a Reattachment Sorcerer, but due to circumstances, he has his brain transplanted into this body.”

“…”

“He hasn’t been awake for even three days yet, so his mind might be a bit unstable. Please be understanding about that.”

“A manipulator from Pandemonium. I’ve heard stories about your unique trait-based spells when you were in the Order of Mages.”

The Reattachment Sorcerer, who had also heard about Victor, looked at him with interest.

Since he was a trait-based sorcerer himself, he seemed to be interested in Victor, who was also a trait-based sorcerer.

“But, every time I look at you, my brain and central nervous system feel like they’re throbbing at the same time.”

“…”

“I asked you before, but have we perhaps met somewhere before?”

The Reattachment Sorcerer openly stated his condition and asked Lenox.

But instead of answering, Lenox looked at the Reattachment Sorcerer standing in front of him.

To be precise, at the ‘right brain’ of the Reattachment Sorcerer who had taken over the body of the Juice Master and awakened.

‘It’s a strange feeling…’

The memory of fighting the Reattachment Sorcerer for his life at the first gate was still vivid.

The chilling power that transcended matter and life, ‘reattaching’ even domains and concepts, had pushed Lenox to the brink.

He had realized for the first time what a trait-based sorcerer who had transcended tiers was like.

If it hadn’t been for Lenox’s target designation resistance ability, the outcome of the fight might have been different.

Lenox knew this, so the presence of the Reattachment Sorcerer he was facing now felt strange.

Even though he knew that the ‘right brain’ of the Reattachment Sorcerer he was facing now was practically a different person from the ‘left brain’ he had killed.

“You haven’t answered since earlier.”

Chapman tilted his head, looking at the silent Lenox.

“What is it? Does this manipulator not have the intelligence to use language?”

“…Chapman. Are you crazy?”

The clown shrugged his shoulders with a dumbfounded expression, while the Reattachment Sorcerer turned his head, unconcerned.

“Then answer me. Surely you didn’t come up with the idea of attacking the gate with a mute.”

“You’re more emotional than I thought.”

At that moment, Lenox opened his mouth with a modulated voice.

Lenox, looking at the Reattachment Sorcerer’s face from behind his mask, tilted his head.

“The Grand Sorcerer of the Order I heard about was a bit more… composed.”

“…You.”

Chapman’s eyes darkened.

The Reattachment Sorcerer, with his unique and intelligent mind, had accurately understood the meaning of Lenox’s words.

“You know about me. Or rather, you know about ‘my’ defeat at the first gate.”

“…”

“I see. If it’s true that I was defeated by a sorcerer named Thousand, then the rumor must have already spread throughout the central front.”

The Reattachment Sorcerer turned away from Lenox, his hands behind his back.

“But this is ultimately a conclusion I had prepared myself for. It was an inevitable arrangement to allocate limited resources for the experiment.”

“…”

“It’s a shame that I couldn’t get my hands on Michael Jelly’s immortality, but I knew it would be difficult to reattach different brain hemispheres.”

Chapman, leaning against the hospital window, turned his head with a serious look.

“The vitality test based on self-confirmation bias is over. If I still remain as myself, then this is also a meaningful achievement.”

“I don’t know what kind of incomprehensible things you’ve been saying to yourself since earlier.”

To say that splitting his brain in two was right, to accept the result of being defeated by Thousand.

To talk to himself using incomprehensible terms and come to his own conclusions was exactly the same as the Reattachment Sorcerer Lenox remembered.

The only difference was that he seemed a bit more emotional than the Reattachment Sorcerer Lenox remembered.

“With that kind of answer, you can’t explain why the Reattachment Sorcerer of the Order is hiding here.”

But Lenox didn’t show any of those feelings and looked down at the clown.

“I don’t care what the Reattachment Sorcerer is doing. What’s the point of all this?”

“Victor. I don’t know if you know this, but the Reattachment Sorcerer is one of the most outstanding surgeons on the continent.”

The clown replied casually.

“Reattachment spells are very powerful even among trait-based spells, but they are actually much more useful in fields other than combat. His skills, utilizing his sensitivity and dexterity, are well-known throughout the continent.”

“The usefulness of spells is-”

“Then, don’t you think there’s a possibility of using his talents here as well?”

Lenox momentarily stopped walking and turned his gaze.

He realized that the clown’s explanation, which felt somewhat strange, was implying something.

“…Could it be, are you saying?”

“He will be playing the role of a ‘doctor’ in this operation.”

The clown grinned and turned his gaze towards the Reattachment Sorcerer.

“To add a little more, he will be assisting us as a doctor, scout, and guide, but with his sensitivity, it shouldn’t be difficult, right?”

“I have no intention of helping Pandemonium that much. I’m only cooperating to check my spell performance and complete the adjustment of my body.”

The Reattachment Sorcerer replied with a nonchalant expression, putting his hands in his surgical gown.

“In this trashy body, not even half of my original spell performance is coming out properly. I don’t think I can do anything without at least a 50% increase in output.”

“Oh, but didn’t my surgery go relatively smoothly?”

“Reattaching a torn body is a procedure I can do with my eyes closed.”

Chapman sent a cold gaze.

“Don’t forget that I was in a coma for over a few months because the wavelengths of this unpleasant body and my superior brain didn’t match.”

“Didn’t I explain who the original owner of that body was last time?”

The clown chuckled while lying on the bed.

“He was a businessman who supplied drugs all over the continent. It’s only natural that his whole body is soaked in drugs, isn’t it?”

“You still don’t understand. That’s exactly what I’m saying is the problem.”

Chapman crossed his arms with a displeased expression.

“I never allowed my superior brain to be transplanted into this kind of body. Who told you to wake me up in this waste of a body?”

“I think the doctor already explained that part.”

The clown grinned.

“In the first place, an ordinary vessel wouldn’t suit you. Even if you’re a trait-based sorcerer, do you think you can perfectly synchronize with someone else’s body with only half of your brain?”

“…”

“It’s because the owner of that body was familiar with the alchemy of the old world that you were able to support yourself by filling half of your brain with alchemy.”

The clown said casually, looking at the Reattachment Sorcerer’s sullen face.

“You should consider yourself lucky that you woke up from a body that would have been paralyzed if things had gone wrong.”

“No, those words can’t even begin to express the displeasure I’m feeling right now.”

Chapman stretched his neck from side to side uncomfortably, extending his joints to their limits.

Awkward and uncomfortable movements, as if he was moving his body for the first time.

“More than half of my internal sensory organs are not working. The level of activation of the sympathetic nervous system is also terrible. My sense of smell is paralyzed. This is usually how the sensory organs of a patient who has been exposed to intense stimuli for a long time and whose thresholds have been damaged are.”

Crack, crack!!

Even though sounds of breaking and snapping came from all over his body, the Reattachment Sorcerer’s face was calm.

A strange reaction, as if he was examining himself while breaking his body.

“To make this body usable, I’ll need a major surgery to cleanse the entire nervous system and more than half a year of delicate care. Have you ever thought about how annoying and troublesome that would be?”

“No? I’m not particularly curious.”

“…”

Lenox, looking at the Reattachment Sorcerer who was staring down at the clown with a blank face, raised his gaze with annoyance.

He had finally realized that a madman, no less than the eccentric people of Pandemonium, had joined them.

He had never thought that he would meet the right brain of the Reattachment Sorcerer somewhere, let alone work with him like this.

“I’ll call Agneta. We need to inform the guys outside about the current situation.”

Lenox, approaching the clown, sent a cold gaze.

“I heard that we can get a ship leaving Tokerphos as early as tomorrow. You need to be able to move by then.”

“Ah, you don’t have to worry about that.”

The clown smiled and raised his hand.

“I’ve already diverted a casino cruise that operates near the city through the Syndicate.”

“What?”

“There’s only one direct route from Tokerphos to the vicinity of the Cabahim capital. That’s why I gathered the members in this city.”

The clown said casually.

“In exchange, I gave them information about the Order’s apostles involved in the terror and the new priestess, so it was a fair trade.”

Since it was the Syndicate who cleaned up the scene of the battle, they would have been quite desperate for information about the Order.

If the clown had taken advantage of that and sold the Order’s information at the right time, it was understandable.

“Let’s depart for Cabahim as soon as it gets light. I’ll finish the adjustments in the meantime-”

The clown grinned and turned his gaze.

“But still, I guess it’s hard to just ignore that, right?”

“…”

The scene of an auction house being broadcast on a small TV screen above the hospital bed.

Customers wearing masks gathered in a vast hall, and a host who was in the middle of an auction.

And the pale form of a weapon that was revealed on the auction stage after the cloth was removed.

“Is that the Order’s forbidden weapon? Interesting.”

The Reattachment Sorcerer recognized the pale glow on the screen and his eyes lit up.

“Even when I killed the apostles, they didn’t have it. How did something like that end up at an auction house?”

“…”

The forbidden weapon ‘Sorrow’.

While Lenox was talking to the clown, had that forbidden weapon already been put up for auction?

Whether Raymond had broken his promise, or the organizers had moved up the schedule.

While Lenox was looking at the screen with a cold gaze, the clown said, resting his chin on his hand.

“Interesting. It seems someone has set the table for us without us knowing…”

The clown, looking at it from the screen, smiled and asked.

“I’m ready, but what about you, Victor?”

“I don’t know why you’re even asking that.”

Lenox, who had been watching the auction that had started for the forbidden weapon, turned around.

Whoosh!!

Lenox, drawing his black magic bullet, hung it on the ceiling of the hospital room without hesitation and said coldly.

“We will ‘recover’ the forbidden weapon within half a day and depart for Cabahim. Prepare.”