Genius Wizard Takes Medicine [EN]: Chapter 1253

Aftermath (7)

The 19th District, where Lenox arrived for his private meeting with the Balkan Mayor, was the very place where the project had ultimately failed.

The final regression that had been carried out in the name of Kaise Bajur. The place where Kaise had met his end at the hands of Ethan.

The memory of that day, when everything was burning and collapsing, was now replaced by the pristine white of a laboratory, as if it had all been a lie.

From the other side of the transparent corridor, a blond boy, the Balkan Mayor, walked out as if to greet Lenox.

Even the guardian who had always been by Jenny’s side since Lenox started working as a freelancer was there.

“…Jordan.”

He had known.

That back when they were discussing plans with his comrades before the subjugation battle, Jordan had also left to prepare something.

That the old man who had always been by Jenny’s side had once been a project associate and Kaise’s personal physician.

That his medical skills and his unusual familiarity with the work of a coroner might have had a reason.

That there might have been an unfinished story between Kaise and Jordan.

He thought he knew, but even so, he hadn’t expected to meet Jordan like this.

Outside, the collapse of magic particles was ceaseless.

Inside the 19th District, having crossed a magical wasteland that no ordinary human could endure for even a moment.

To meet Jordan like this, on the other side of the laboratory beyond the [Gate] –

“The way back will be very dangerous.”

“……”

“The air outside is worse than I thought. It’s not a place you can walk through with your bare body.”

Lenox spoke with a blank expression, looking at Jordan, who didn’t answer.

“Perhaps we’ll need Jordan’s help, since he knows this place so well.”

“…I’m sorry, Ban.”

Jordan quietly replied to Lenox’s indirect words.

“To appear before you like this only after everything is over, an old man like me has no shame.”

“……”

“But… please understand that this was the only thing I could do.”

The old man raised his gaze from beside the smiling boy.

“I will gladly accept whatever you decide to do with me, but before that, there is one last thing I want to show you.”

“Does Jenny know about this?”

“……”

“She doesn’t.”

“I was always grateful for your consideration of Jenny.”

Jordan closed his eyes.

“How much of a blessing it is that a great mage like you has such humanity… you can’t imagine how grateful I was for that fact.”

“……”

“Lord Kaise couldn’t do that until the very end. Even though the young master hated him, in the end, he gradually came to resemble him…”

In the quiet silence, Jordan spoke softly.

“Perhaps it’s an unavoidable fate for those who carry the Bajur blood. That’s why I was relieved that Jenny lost her talent for defying fate.”

“……”

“Perhaps I’ve arrived at this point after turning a blind eye and ignoring everything. But…”

Jordan looked at Lenox with deep eyes.

“Even so, it was because of you that he was able to reach a proper end.”

“……”

“Instead of endlessly rewinding his regrets and breaking down, he was able to leave as a seeker of truth. Ban, I-”

Jordan, with his eyes closed, murmured as if shaking off the regrets in his heart.

“I think that alone is more than we deserve.”

“…Jordan.”

“In this cruel world… how many people were able to leave while reflecting on their initial choices? How many have fallen, broken, and become ugly?”

Jordan raised his head.

“If we could have twisted the worst ending that we had prepared for from the beginning, even a little, then the attempt to change fate might not have been in vain. If you were there to tell us of our failure, that alone might have had meaning.”

“……”

“I think that’s enough now.”

Jordan opened his eyes and gave Lenox a gentle smile.

“So, I must now do what I have to do.”

“What… what do you mean by that?”

Jordan didn’t answer Lenox’s question.

Instead, he slowly turned and began to walk ahead down the pure white corridor.

As Lenox quietly watched his back, the blond boy standing next to him tapped his sleeve.

“Let’s get going. If we have Jordan as our guide, we’ll arrive quickly.”

“…You.”

“Come to think of it, my greeting was late when we met at the hearing, wasn’t it?”

The boy smiled and bowed his head slightly in a polite gesture.

“Arges Ormeon. I am the Mayor of Balkan. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“……”

A light and easy greeting that was hard to believe from the most powerful person in the megacity.

His appearance in front of Lenox, as if he had never been out of the public eye for decades, was like a lie.

But Lenox wasn’t surprised by the mayor’s appearance or voice.

As the mayor said, he had already seen him once during the hearing.

And he had seen what the mayor looked like in another memory.

“The way you looked in Kaise Bajur’s regression was very different from now.”

Lenox looked down at the boy with a cold gaze.

“If your age and face, even your gender, are different from decades ago, is that itself a part of your ability?”

“Ah, if you know that much, then you must have followed Kaise’s regression to the end?”

The mayor tilted his head with a bright smile.

“Well, I thought it wouldn’t be resolved without that, but it’s unexpected. I didn’t think you’d say it yourself.”

“……”

“Even if you only count the perceived time, it would have easily exceeded hundreds of years. Did you watch all those regressions to the end to face Kaise?”

“There’s no reason to deny or hide what I had to do after the subjugation battle ended.”

Lenox met the boy’s gaze with a cold look.

“You knew that too, which is why you tried to contact me as soon as the war ended, didn’t you?”

“……”

The cause that Kaise had left in this world through the Black Consumer Project was on a scale more vast than any other attempt.

From the moment the Imperial Palace intervened, it was clear that Kaise’s failure was the largest in the history of the third world.

If so, there was no way that the project associates wouldn’t have felt it the moment Lenox completely annihilated Kaise.

The mayor must have called Lenox to the 19th District to meet him as soon as the war ended for that reason.

If he had been investigating the secrets of the project, if he knew about the 19th District, there was no way he wouldn’t be interested in this summons.

It was just that he had prioritized meeting Jenny first, knowing that fact.

He thought that bringing an end to the story of Kaise, whom he had been chasing for so long, was the priority.

He had tried to prioritize honoring the pioneer who was similar to himself, yet ultimately different-

But it turned out that the remnants of the project remained not only with Jenny but also here.

And with a project associate that Lenox had never expected.

“I know what you’re thinking, but I hope you’re not too displeased.”

The boy gave a wry smile as he looked up at Lenox’s cold face.

“As you know better than anyone, Jordan is just an ordinary person with no power now. He didn’t try to deceive or hide anything from you with any bad intentions.”

“……”

“Rather, he is very grateful to you. He even thinks he could give his life for you right now if you wanted him to.”

The mayor glanced at Jordan, who was walking ahead, and gave a wry smile.

“Well, even if that weren’t the case, he already seems to have decided on his own end.”

“I don’t feel betrayed. There’s no reason for me to be displeased that he hid something from me.”

Lenox replied with an indifferent expression.

“It’s just that he didn’t tell Jenny about it… that’s not a very pleasant story to hear.”

“Ahaha, hearing that makes me understand why Jordan trusts you so much.”

The boy laughed.

“You are a surprisingly human transcendent. It’s unbelievable that you can still be like that even after reaching that level.”

“……”

“Most of the geniuses who shone like stars in history couldn’t do that. They would unconsciously look down on those who were less than them, not even expecting anything from them… and in the end, they would come to regard them as less than mere insects.”

The mayor asked in a casual tone, as if it were nothing.

“Considering that, can’t you understand a little why Jordan couldn’t tell anyone about his role and hid it?”

“What are you trying to say?”

“If you saw what I did with him in Kaise’s regression, you would know.”

The boy said as he walked down the pristine corridor.

“We made a deal regarding the project. In exchange for concentrating all the resources and capabilities of the megacity to help him, the City Council would take over the project’s scenarios that Kaise had excluded.”

“……”

“Even if it failed without reaching success, there was an immeasurable amount of valuable information among the world-scale scenarios. For example, the Grand Canal scenario.”

“Grand Canal scenario?”

He seemed to have heard about it in passing during Kaise’s regression.

As Lenox was lost in thought at the strangely familiar words, the mayor said casually.

“It’s a plan to open all the waterways on the continent and connect the world’s waterways into one. It was a plan that was abandoned after failing in the early stages of the project, but for that, Kaise personally dug up all the waterways and water veins on the continent.”

“……”

“In the process, the maps of the water veins and waterways across the continent that were recorded. You can understand how valuable this information is, right?”

Lenox could understand what the mayor was trying to say.

Originally, waterways and water veins do not exist independently, but are environmental elements that are closely intertwined with each other.

If you knew the location and flow of all those water veins, it would even be possible to artificially interfere with the water veins or waterways outside of Balkan.

There were countless ways to indirectly benefit from it without the City Council directly announcing or revealing it.

“We interfered with the water veins used in Yin-Yang techniques or Feng Shui to conduct or disrupt large-scale rituals. We artificially blocked or polluted the waterways of surrounding cities or autonomous territories to force them to trade with Balkan, and we received compensation for purifying the water veins.”

As Lenox was speechless, the mayor turned his gaze with a smile.

“The other scenarios are different in content, but the value of the information is no less. In some ways, there were scenarios that contained information that could make the Grand Canal seem like nothing.”

“So that’s why the City Council was able to grow this city to such a massive scale.”

Lenox lowered his gaze.

“Information that a regressor obtained by turning the world upside down. Was that the condition for lending a hand to the project?”

“No matter how bizarre and miserable the failure is, if something was attempted, there will be something to gain somewhere.”

The mayor replied.

“We no longer cling to national-level ascension rituals. We’ve watched how the cities that dreamed of ascension in that way have fallen. That’s why we made a deal with Ars Nova to change our fate.”

“……”

“Machina, Yorta, Kundara… The conclusion we reached while watching countless cities on the four continents is that the answer using the power of scale is ultimately meaningless.”

The boy said as he moved forward.

“Kaise knew that better than anyone. That’s why he wanted to remain an ‘individual’ until the very end, even while endlessly repeating the project.”

“……”

“What remains here is the result… a kind of arrangement that Kaise made to leave behind his replacement until the last moment.”

At that moment, the area of the corridor began to widen slightly.

Each time they followed Jordan, the surroundings opened up, and the entire landscape of the research building came into full view.

As Lenox watched Jordan’s figure completely disappear into the light, the boy said.

“The reason Jordan can be the guide here is because he worked as Kaise’s personal physician and knew more about Kaise’s physical condition than anyone else.”

“…That’s.”

“He left a deeper cause here than anyone else among the project associates, so he can still be here like this even after decades.”

The boy smiled and glanced at him.

“So, to completely settle Kaise’s end… shall we go down?”

“……”

Lenox silently cast his gaze towards the other side of the corridor where the light was coming in.

He had a vague feeling of what the mayor meant by settling the end.

At the end of the corridor where Jordan’s figure had disappeared. Something the mayor was talking about existed there.

The moment he confirmed it, something irreversible would remain here.

“It’s okay.”

The boy nodded, as if guessing Lenox’s thoughts.

“The project is all over, and all that’s left here are his remnants. There’s no way it will continue to be maintained in any way.”

“……”

“Above all, Jordan wants to show you himself.”

The mayor asked.

“If this is the end, wouldn’t that be okay?”

“…The end.”

Whose end was he talking about?

Before his thoughts could continue, Lenox slowly moved forward.

Whoosh!!!

Each time he moved, the dazzling light receded, and the landscape of the 19th District appeared before Lenox’s eyes.

The existence of thousands of laboratories, aligned to the horizon beyond the transparent glass walls.

Thousands of glass prisons, all transparent, spread out around the corridor where Lenox was standing.

But as Lenox looked down at the landscape of the laboratories, he could understand everything in an instant.

“This is…”

Why the past Kaise had called the 25th District a testbed for the project.

Why the other closed districts had turned into inhuman wastelands where magic particle collapse occurred.

Why the 19th District was out of sync with the flow of time, as if time was broken compared to other districts.

Why the 19th District had been called Kaise Bajur’s ‘tomb’.

“……”

Inside the closed 19th District. The landscape of thousands of glass laboratories spread out beneath his feet.

In each of those laboratories, the corpses of thousands of Kaise Bajurs were enshrined.